Taking Your Camera on the Road

After the trailer was set up, the water damage discovered and dismissed as overwhelming our stressed-out level, and some dinner consumed, Brent and I both sat at the small dining table in our trailer, laptops open. He drifted off into music and poking at his computer then moved to his guitar, playing in the bedroom sitting on the bed. I sat at the table and disappeared into the world of American television.

Before leaving Israel and a permanent Internet connection, and at Brent’s parent’s where I hooked up our wireless router to their high speed internet, I’ve been downloading television shows from eDonkey. I can’t get Kazaa to work after installing Microsoft’s Windows XP SP2 update consistently. It works for a day or two and then doesn’t. I can’t figure out the trick yet. But eDonkey is working. I tried LimeWire but unless the file had a tons of offerings, it was too slow from Israel. eDonkey isn’t the best but it is still working after the XP SP2 install. It’s a good improvement and install but the Windows XP SP2 update takes over your machine and does a little too much to help you automatically (without your permission) as far as I’m concerned.

Anyway, I’ve been grabbing the latest episodes of Star Trek Enterprise, West Wing, and Gilmore Girls, as well as Stargate, Andromeda and That 70s Show. Shows that I have eclectic tastes, doesn’t it. Since I don’t have access to a VCR hooked up to anything, and Brent’s parent’s cable is as simplistic in choices as cheaply possible, and we’ve been moving so hard and fast that sitting in front of the TV isn’t possible, this is the only way for me to go. I have started researching Tivo and the new media choices available, but I haven’t had much time to do much with it.

I sat at the table after dinner and glued myself to my laptop screen. I watched three episodes of Star Trek Enterprise, and three of Gilmore Girls. Wow. That’s more television than I’ve watched in the past six months or more combined. With the stress of the trip and change, it felt good to almost disappear into another world or two.

So here are my reviews of the new Star Trek Enterprise season and Gilmore Girls, since I’ve had concentrated viewing of them lately.

Star Trek Enterprise

The first three seasons Star Trek Enterprise felt like it was searching for what it was to become. The first season had a child-like playfulness as the group learned to live in space and cope with the new technology. They all faced their fears, and learned what their strengths and weaknesses were. But then something happened in season two and three. It started to get adventurous but a little stale. There were a few highlights with interesting story lines and moral challenges such as the episode “Dear Doctor” where the crew run across a planet with a dying population taking desperate measures to cure itself by seeking assistance from outer space, yet their sub-population of “slaves” appears to be the successor in the survival of the fittest. The main population is dying because their genes are dying out in the battle in evolution and they think it is a disease. The moral issue faced by the crew is whether to tell them or just let nature take its course. That was a great episode worthy of the greatest moral challenges faced by prior Star Trek casts.

The third season’s story line was jammed pack with the car chase, Gunsmoke meets Starsky and Hutch, with a little Gilligan’s Island thrown in for color. The crew must defend Earth against an attack by a group of aliens they trace to an area of space called the Expanse, an unholy terror of space anomalies and raiders. They travel to the Expanse, turn a little savage in their determination to survive against the overwhelming odds and save Earth from the alien terrorists, but they run into one of the most popular story line hooks from the very beginning of Star Trek history: time travel. Aliens from the future tied with humans who have mastered time travel in the future are having a temporal war and Enterprise is the major twist in their ability to succeed at every level. These two story lines, time travel wars and save Earth, get twisted in on themselves and entangled as the viewer tried to keep up with the switching plots. Eventually the connection between the time travel and alien terrorists are made, but a lot of it seems a little too easy and pat. But you are still on an interesting ride.

The season finale, though, was a mind blower. Brent stood over my shoulder as I watched the final scenes with a reptilian looking creature in a Nazi uniform stood over Captain Archer in a Nazi field hospital, German language babbling away in the background. “Star Trek meets Sliders?” he asked. I had to agree with those last 30 seconds of the show. We were left hanging for the summer hiatus, eager to find out what the hell happened.

Season four starts and we find that the temporal war hasn’t ended, but it is still going on and the writers and producers have finally pulled off a couple of episodes that encompass the very things that made the most successful Star Trek episodes so famous: time travel and Nazis. One of the most famous original Star Trek episodes still voted high by fans is the one staring a young Joan Collins and William Shatner falling in love during World War II on a time travel journey back to Earth in the 1940s called “The Edge of Tomorrow”. In the season opener for Enterprise, Archer finds himself in the 1940s during an alternative earth history. The Nazis, with alien assistance, have moved onto US soil and have taken over the east coast of the states. He has to help the Americans break into the Nazi/alien encampment and destroy the technology there. Lasting two episodes, it doesn’t come close to the intrigue and emotional drama of “Edge of Tomorrow” but it tries.

In the third episode, Enterprise returns home as heros who saved the planet, though how famous they are and how they know they are heros is fairly weakly covered and jumped over. This hurts the plot line that deals with Archer’s battle to hold his calm while being interrogated by Starfleet and the Vulcan ambassador. We just don’t quite understand his anger. I thought he’d come to terms with the Vulcan’s attitude of logic and restraint, but it seems he hasn’t and is carrying a head of pissed off-edness. By the end of the show, we find out that a lot of it is guilt over what he did in the Expanse in order to save Earth and his crew, as well as his fear of the horrors he has seen out there being met by new Earth explorers heading out into space ill-prepared, as he and his crew were. But it takes a while for us to get the clue and that is irritating. All we see is him angry for a long time.

The better story line has Trip going to Vulcan with Ta’pal. We all know they are in love with each other and yet they can’t see it. Even when they figure it out, Ta’pal decides to marry her Vulcan fiancé to protect her mother from the Vulcan government’s actions in retaliation for Enterprise interfering with a Vulcan spy post. Instead of interfering, Trip decides to let it happen to save Ta’pal from the stress of knowing he was in love with her. This is really interesting and they could have done even more with it, but we are left with only the tantalizing teaser of love unrequited. In the next episode, there is little reference to her marriage and we are wondering what is going on…teasing us on, I know.

The next three episodes are what I would call the very best Enterprise has delivered, and mostly this is due to the phenomenal performance by Brent Spiner returning to the Star Trek fold as Arik Soong, Noonien Soong’s great-great-grandfather, a genius scientist who turned to the dark side when it came to genetic manipulation and was in prison for his transgressions. Through the three episodes, Brent Spiner’s acting is superb, a little bit of Data, Noonien Soong, and the rough draft what eventually became those two characters, as if the gene pool actually passed down psychological as well as physiological traits. He pushes the limit as he explores the sanity of insanity and genius, playing Archer and his crew against himself and others to get his way. Brilliant.

These three episodes also deal with part of the history line of Star Trek involving the Eugenics War, created by Gene Rodenberry in the original Star Trek, and brought to life with the excellent acting and physical presence of Ricardo Montalban as Kahn Noonien Soong . This prescience of the original Star Trek series is handled deftly and beautifully, and it is refreshing for fans to see these connections, especially when the tie-ins are intentional. Arik Soong is part of the crimes commited during the Eugenics Wars and after which created Kahn Noonien Soong. Kahn and his team of despots are put into cryogenic sleep and launched into space in a humanitarian gesture to eventually encounter Kirk and his crew who wakes them. Noonien Soong creates Data. Well done.

The first of the three episodes also introduces the viewers to a short speak at the mysterious Orions, featuring their oversexed women and, for the first time, the barbarous men. Most of the Orions, painted with green body paint, are current or former wrestlers and stunt men, choices for their brawn. The lead Orion was the popular TV wrestler, Big Show, someone I’ve never heard of, but he carried off the ugly slave auctioneer very well. You wanted to hate the slimy guy instantly.

The next two episodes deal with a government power struggle on Vulcan that comes to life after a terrorist attack on the Earth Embassy on Vulcan, killing the long time Star Trek Enterprise’s Admiral Forrest, played by Vaughn Armstrong, which gives the crew motivation to solve the puzzle of the terrorist attack, and deals with more of the fears of terrorism in the United States. Star Trek has always dealt with topical current events within its story lines, changing the names and places but still trying to show the different sides of an issue such as AIDS, slavery, prejudice, and politics. Last season and this one have an undertone of the threats of terrorism and battling against enemies you don’t comprehend.

In this two part series, the last I’ve seen so far, it is fascinating to see the plot thicken to help us understand that the IDIC and Surak’s teachings didn’t just arrive with the Vulcans. The planet’s civilization may be old, and their ways old, compared to Earth, but here is a plot that shows us that even before Kirk and Spock overcame their differences to become best friends, Enterprise helped Vulcans redefine themselves as spiritual, psychic and logical “people”. Interesting twists.

So I’m very thrilled with the new season of Enterprise. They are really getting back to their roots and adding drama and brilliant character development without sappy, tired stories or rehashing old story lines without much imagination. The characters are well developed and are performing better in their acting skins. I’m very happy with it and can’t wait for the next episode, something I haven’t been able to say for the past two seasons. Keep up the great work folks.

Gilmore Girls

I am totally ecstatic with the plot changes to get Luke and Lorelei together. Totally thrilled. The last season’s finale had me biting the bit and watching all the peer-to-peer networks for the season opener, which finally showed in the last couple weeks before we left Israel. Gilmore Girls shows in Israel but at weird times last at night and not always on the same days and times. And they are still two seasons behind, so peer-to-peer network downloads have been the only way to get to see the show. I got hooked a few years ago while watching the first episodes on a visit to the states, and was desperate to follow it when I got back Israel.

I read an interview with one of the show’s producers that said that they weren’t nervous about the interest in the show going downhill because of Luke and Lorelei getting together. The magic of the tension between the two wasn’t going to be gone and the show’s main dynamic disappear. And he was totally right. The two of them are magic, but they are threatened by the town within the first couple of episodes, as they take sides over what should happen if the two of them get together and then break apart and how it will effect the entire town. Then Rory’s father pops in and out and the friendship and total connection between Chris and Lorelei looks like it might threaten Luke and Lorelei, but doesn’t. And then the break up between Lorelei’s parents adds more fuel to the complicated story. Rory coming to terms with her relationship with her old boyfriend, now divorced, Dean, and her growing friendship with another “bad boy” at university, adds more to her growing pains. There are wonderful sub-stories going on with Sookie pregnant again and going bonkers, along with her husband, Jackson, who is trying to quit his job as the newly elected Alderman for the town, and then with Rory’s friend, Lane, coming to terms with her newly discovered love for one of her roommates and band members, Zack, a totally inappropriate young man for her to be involved in, which stirs up trouble with her fellow roommates, band members, and her mother, the fanatic religious matron.

This is truly one of the best shows on television today. The dialogue continues to be top drawer, with fast paced banter and plays on the language and current events. I almost fell out of my chair during an episode from two years ago when one of the characters, Paris, a type A personality out of control and one of Rory’s school mates, announces that she is going to do “a Sharon” on someone. At the time the episode aired, Israeli Prime Minister Sharon was battling terrorists in Jenin, so I gather that a “Sharon” was a fight against overwhelming odds, wiping out terror on a broad scale, or something even worse. The early reports by the Palestinians were that there were hundreds killed and that the streets were running with blood in Jenin. Yet, when the dust settled, something like 30 or 50 Palestinians were killed, at 20-40 Israelis, and tons of explosives, bomb-making materials, and weapons were found, and hundreds of terrorists were captured. Israel is still using the confessions and information gathered during the invasion into Jenin to defend itself against terrorism.

Anyway, the plot thickens as Emily, Lorelei’s mother, starts dating, and Luke’s wacky sister and husband buy a broken down house in town to be near to “family”, causing Luke no end of grief as they bring their crazy life into his and complicate things between he and Lorelei.

There are a lot of things I adore in this show. One of the biggest things is the similarity to Lorelei and my life, though I never had a child, my resentment of my mother’s “high class” life and determination to live “on my own” is very similar. And when her mother gets going with her calmly said back stabs, double entendres, she and my mother should get together to practice. My mother has the same kind of gentle back stabbing ability to just sit there looking lovely and sophisticated and sound like she is making total sense and being polite while she is ripping you up one side and down the other. Their conversations are so familiar to me, I want to laugh and cry at the same time.

The other things I think make this show top drawer are the small town familiarity, celebration of high education and no education equally, and willingness to tackle social issues head on in a way that shows multiple sides of the issue while helping the viewers debate with the characters on how they would decide for themselves. The small town familiarity is exciting as it shows a community where everyone’s business is everyone’s business, and how this is a good thing and not bad. Too many places we’ve traveled through in the US we’ve found people don’t even know their neighbors. US natives tend to know each other superficially – by their jobs and not their personalities and quirks. They know people who are plumbers, electricians, fixers of things, good at this and that, or who have this tool or that they can borrow or get tips about, but they really don’t “know” each other. In the fictional town of the Gilmore Girls, not only does everyone know the strengths, weaknesses, and abilities of each other, they know who to trust and depend upon for each of the different situations and where to go when they need real help, not just to “use” people. That is very refreshing and the US has a lot to learn from this characteristic of the show.

The celebration of education, or the lack of it, is seen throughout the show. It accepts that there are people who have the driving force to make it through college and get numerous degrees, that there are people who become rich and successful and that there are people who are born to it. And that people who aren’t rich, and never went beyond high school, deserve the same credit and respect as any of the other people. Every one has their place in the human chain of a community and there are no “betters” or “worse-offs”. Everyone is a part of the whole and treated equally. Even the totally whacked out character of Kirk (played brilliantly by Sean Gunn) is a typical kid we all went to school with, but lost track of after school. He is grown up and no less strange than he was when he was in high school. Yet, he serves a purpose within the community as the naive troublemaker and determined community spirit who loses more than succeeds.

As for the third element I so appreciate, dealing with social issues, I think for this reason alone the writers, producers, and actors deserve the highest praise and honors and awards. The main plot of a 16 year old having a baby out of wedlock and then raising it alone after running away from home and finishing her education, then eventually succeeding as a business owner, this is a brilliant picture of a positive outcome on a bad situation. In an episode from one of the early seasons, Lorelei is invited to speak to a high school class about being a business woman, but the kids start asking about Rory and how was it to be pregnant at 16 and have a kid and raise it by yourself…and while she answers truthfully, it comes off to the teachers and other parents that she is suggesting that it is a great thing to get knocked up at 16, something they don’t want to encourage their 16 year olds to do. This isn’t what she was doing. What she was doing was honoring Rory and her accomplishment of raising her daughter, not condoning her choice. Well done.

They have tackled high school politics, religious and health fanaticism, adultery, premarital sex, college drinking and parties, shop lifting, community politics, love, hate, family, violence, and all parts in between. Early on, the show was lauded for the “Christian family” perspective, but I think it has grown to leave Christian views a little behind and moved into the bigger world of respect for everyone and everything and the challenges of just getting along in this complicated world.

Well done and kudos to everyone involved with Gilmore Girls. I wish there were more shows like it, but then again, having it remain unique is what makes it special. Still, other shows could learn a thing or two from the brilliance behind and within Gilmore Girls.

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Okay, so those are my little reviews of the new seasons of those two shows. As I catch up with others, I may add more comments, but for now, I think I’m done as a television critic.
Mobile, Alabama

[Warning – Contains Colorful and Useful Language]

Brent originally estimated three days then revised it to four days, but we actually made it in two and a half days. Of course, we certainly didn’t stop and smell any roses along the way.

We are here in Mobile, Alabama, and already I’m in hell.

Stopping for gas not far before the Alabama border with Mississippi, we heard the gas attendant over the loud speaker as we came to a stop. She was talking to someone in the lane next to us. “Yahl ken tern da gahz on nah-owe.” Brent and I looked at each other and screamed.

Following the directions to the RV park we’d made arrangements with over two months ago, we found no signs anywhere along the main road directing us. Most campgrounds put up signs along major roads and highways to direct traffic to them. Nothing. Not even a little sign post. We had a copy of the ad out of the RV Campground book (from Brent’s parents) and a print out from the web page. We turned, sure we were on the wrong road, and just as we were about to give up, there was the sign next to the drive way of the campground. No warning. Odd.

We pulled in to find the sign for the office was spelled “__fice” and followed the broken arrow which we assumed meant straight ahead. There was another sign for the office that pointed to two vacant campground spots, then finally, around on the other side of the spots there was an office building with a bigger sign, hidden behind bushes. We just stopped in the road and Brent went out to register.

As I sat with the cat in the truck, pulling together the odds and ends of our “on the road activities”, this horrid looking woman limped into view on the road with her little white poodle dog adorned in a bright red felt “jacket”. She was over dressed in black and red with huge white gray poof hair with gallons of hair spray. Her black designer sweater featured a bright red and white snowman and Christmas symbols where there should be a pocket near her waist. Her face was very wrinkled and she wore too much eye shadow with drawn lines on her brows and a bright red lipstick mouth puckered around a cigarette or fake cigarette for those trying to stop. Her mouth was so tight around the white stick that it looked like a red ring on the end of it where her face stopped. On her right leg was a half leg brace and cast, causing her limp. An elderly couple dressed all in khaki grays to match their gray hair came up to say hello to her as they held hands for their walk around the campground for evening exercise. They looked interesting, but this other woman looked horrid. Brent later told me that she was a perfect cartoon character. “Disney couldn’t have drawn her any better.”

Panic started to overwhelm me. I don’t panic often, but the overbearing fear of being trapped in the hicksville American south bible belt started to grip me. I grabbed my cell phone and called the only person I could think of who could truly appreciate this moment other than Brent. My mother.

“Mom, I’m in fucking Alabama and I’m in hell!”

I described the scene around me, broken signs, broken down parts and pieces needing repair, the people, the accent, all of it. She agreed it was truly hell and said she wished I was closer. I cried, “I wanna come home.” She understood. A rare moment.

I know I’ll survive and I know it won’t be as bad as it seems, but the badness was reinforced after we parked the trailer and some old guy came over to meet the new residents. Brent talked to him for a while and then came to tell me that he’d made a new friend and the guy’s little dog is called Muffy. Who calls their dog Muffy any more? People without imagination. “I’m in hell!!!! You’ve brought me to hell!!” I yelled through the storm glassed windows at him.

Well, we’re going to shower for the first time in three days and get all this travel dirt off of us, and hopefully relax a muscle or two. We’ll go out tomorrow and check out the other two campgrounds, one of which is very close to his new office, and where all the WalMarts, grocery stores, post offices, and gas stations are, to find our way around. Got to find a laundry, too. I’m pissed that I just got a new washer and dryer in Tel Aviv and now I’m back to freakin’ laundry mats again. I barely had time to enjoy the thrill of a washer and dryer after a decade of laundry rooms. Poop.

We will figure out if we will stay here or more to the closer campground in the next day or so and then I can start unpacking and cleaning things up and looking for an Internet connection.

Oh, we did have one minor adventure. We have braces that compression fit above the ceiling of our slideout to keep it from tilting open as we drive over rough terrain. Still learning how everything works, I forgot to remove them until I opened the slideout and Brent yelled “Stop!” I closed the slideout immediately and Brent came in to help me undo the braces. He found that the back one had punched a hole in the inside wall of the trailer. Shit.

With the slideout fully open, you can hardly see where the rectangular impression is, yet, while checking it, I stuck my finger in to feel the depth of the damage and it came out not only wet but with rotted wood on it. More shit. I checked all along the wall’s edge and found that it was all damp and flexing. The whole back corner of the trailer had or still has a leak and the wood is rotted. This is a serious problem as it supports the back end of the slideout and will require the slideout to be removed before the wood frame can be stripped, dried out, and replaced. Serious amount of work and money. We could do it ourselves if it wasn’t for the slideout, but we don’t know how to take the slideout out without special equipment to support it like a fork lift or something. Crapola.

For now, we’re going to ignore it and deal with what we can and the new job starting. We’ll check the local RV places to see if they can handle this kind of thing and go from there. This is the kind of damage that I was afraid of and relieved when we didn’t find it. The punching in of the wall was accidental but led us to discover this serious damage. Not fun.

So this is life in a mobile home in Mobile, Alabama. Let’s hope that this is the worst of it.
Mobile, Alabama

Just spelling em-eye-es-es-eye-es-es-eye-pee-pee-eye reminds me of school and learning to spell. We took a break at an outlet mall along highway 55 to stretch our legs and check out some books and kitchen supplies (didn’t get anything, though) and found that we had entered another world. The people dress different, their hair is very strange and different, and the language, well, I think its English but the accent and word choices are definitely foreign. We have crossed into another world.

Yep, we’re in the south. Brent tells me that I have to get used to it. I tell him that I have spent too much time getting used to all things southern Americana in my life and I’m tired of it. We’ll see who survives this – them or me. We saw one woman who looked like she had curlers in her hair. Upon closer inspection, it was her hair shaped like curlers and not curlers. VERY strange. The amount of time spent on hair here, on white and black folk, is amazing, and yet almost none goes into what they wear. Nails and hair and bad clothes. Amazing.

We spent last night, our first night on the road, in our own bed and bathroom and home. We got as far as Alma, Arkansas, just inside the Arkansas border past Fort Smith. We stayed at a KOA there and hooked up to electricity. It was freezing cold with frost on the ground already at seven in the evening, and we wanted to run the little electric heaters and save propane, since we’re not sure how long the propane is going to last since we don’t know how long we’ll be traveling. We had a little dinner and then I turned on my laptop and caught an episode of Star Trek Enterprise then we fell asleep within minutes of crawling under the covers.

I kept waking up in the night, from the sound of the jingle bell on Kohav’s collar, from the chilly cold, and from everything else that has been happening. Even completely exhausted, the brain wouldn’t shut down.

Driving along the highway, feeling the tug of the trailer behind us, memories came flying back. But not concrete memories of specific moments and events, just familiarity. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt, those kind of familiar moments. We’ve spent what feels like months behind the wheel of this truck, bouncing along the highways and byways of North America. The familiarity is comfortable and at the same time, foreign. We are different now, aged in amazing ways, since the last time we bounced across an American highway. Physically, we are older, Brent’s butt is thicker and mine is smaller, but mentally, a lot has changed. And yet, we are in the same vehicle and the same “home” we left five years ago. It is a very strange feeling and it will take me time to really get a grasp on it.

As always when we start a long trip, it took a long time for my shoulders to drop down from somewhere up around my ears. We stopped to check the truck and trailer brakes to see if they were hot and found one of them slightly overheated. Brent adjusted the trailer brakes in the truck’s controls, and they cooled down, but we stopped every 30 minutes to make sure they were not hot. I kept watching the new tires of the truck and trailer though the side view mirror to make sure they were maintaining their correct air pressure and not going flat. They are new tires, but we worry all the same.

There are a lot of familiar but still renewed things to remember and think about while pulling a trailer. Some of it we find ourselves doing by rote, unconscious at first that we remembered and then kinda tickled that it came back to us so easy. Other things are starting to click in, but we’re not sure. For instance, I vaguely remember that Brent wired the electricity for the trailer so that the truck engine would recharge the trailer batteries as we drove. I asked Brent and he says he can’t remember. A few hours later, he admitted that he thinks that is so, but he honestly can’t remember how he did it. It will come back to him, but we are learning to live with the memories and the gaps in the memory as we put this all together in our heads.

Brent’s brother-in-law, Terry, called to wish us luck and check how far we’d gotten. I told him that we were just across the Arkansas border and he was impressed. So we were when we realized that we’d left at 3PM and it was six and we’d gotten this far with no crises. He asked how we were doing, and honestly, Brent and I were in a fog. I couldn’t honestly answer that. Total fog. Just numb with stress and the mental over-work.

We followed the signs for the KOA from the highway. Brent wanted electricity and some of the comforts of water and sewer just to make sure we were going to be okay the first night. The rest of the trip will probably be truck stops and Walmart since we’re moving long hours and don’t want to mess with finding campgrounds and paying the high fees for a few hours of sleep and then leaving. The KOA was way up a hill and as we yanked the trailer up the slope, I asked Brent if he could see the gas gauge moving down. He nodded, teeth tight with the familiarity of the money this thing sucks out of our pockets.

The next morning, we pulled out in the frosty cold chill, and headed down the highway, 40, towards Little Rock. Midway, Brent reassessed our route with was to head south from Little Rock, and changed it to continue on 40 to Memphis, and then turn south on 55 to cut south and diagonally towards Mobile, Alabama. It keeps us on major highways more than scenic byways, which should shorten our trip.

Terry had lent us his CDS of the book-on-tape of the Da Vinci Code and Brent had made Mp3 copies of it. We listed to it as we drove, something we’ve loved to do for years, and it took our minds off the major truck butt boredom we were experiencing. I pulled out a crochet project I started almost 6 years ago for my best friend, Susan, hoping to finish it before we arrive and in time to mail for a Christmas present. Susan and I do this all the time, start major craft projects for each other and then never get them done in time, but I think this might be the world’s record for such gifts. It’s been in storage in the trailer for five years.

About 11:30 I spotted a sign along the road for a pizza place to eat, so I suggested that we get pizza for lunch. Unfortunately, for the next two hours, there were no more pizza signs, so we ended up at a Love’s truck stop which had both an A&W and Subway to choose from. Brent loves Subway, but this time we both went A&W for something different. It was okay, but it wasn’t Braums.

We ate in the trailer since the eating area smelled like cigarettes, though we didn’t see ashtrays or smokers. Maybe left over from ages of smoking in there. Then back on the road.

A few minutes on the road, a big truck passed us carrying a huge old tractor all rusted out, wheels missing. It looked like it was at least 75 years old. As it moved in front of his, a rock came flying off of it and smashed into the windshield. Our first ding. It’s a good one, real visible, but in the center of the window. Shit. We’ve only had this windshield for two weeks. I want a computer generated shield to protect from that kind of crap.

Just after crossing the Mississippi line, I knew I’d crossed another line. The religious line. Right alongside the highway was a HUGE overbuilt white steepled church that screamed Baptists, Revival, Holy Rollers, and religious truck stop. We’re in the land of not only bible beaters but bible thumpers. Oh, god save us now.

We drove on until we found the outlet malls in Mississippi, walked them to stretch our legs, then pulled over to a nearby Walmart. We went inside to get Brent more Walmart chocolate chip cookies, which he adores, and other sundry items, and finally found a sort level spot in the parking lot to park for the night. The entire parking lot is raked about 5-10 degrees towards the store. I thought that was weird since that would drive all the water towards the store and not away from it. Very strange.

There is a hospital across the street from the parking lot and I’m typing this listening to the many sirens coming in and out of it. That will be a familiar noise to life in Tel Aviv, so I don’t expect it to keep me awake. I’m so tired, I hopefully will sleep through the night.

Kohav is doing very well, loving the traveling and riding in the car with us. She is cuddly and sweet, a little playful but very happy. She will either sleep between us in her fuzzy bed or in her cat carrier bag used on the airplanes sitting in the back seat. If she wakes up there, she will cry out because she can’t see us over the back seat, so I’ll lean back a little and she will stretch up and pet my hand and then go back to sleep, totally happy she isn’t abandoned. She really has always traveled well, and becomes the most loving kitty when traveling compared to the teenager antics she has been going through at home.

Well, it is slowly getting late and it’s time to crawl into the bed. Brent slipped in an hour ago but I wanted to write this down before I forgot. By tomorrow, we should be old veterans at this traveling business, and it looks like we actually might arrive tomorrow in Mobile. We’re not sure, but keeping to the main highway really speeds up the trip time. We are just under 400 miles away, maybe less. We’ll see how far we get, and what we find when we get there.

Lorelle
WalMart, Batesville, Mississippi – I think

We finally hit the road. It’s been two and a half weeks of trials and tribulations trying to get things fixed, debating on what must be fixed now and what can wait, and fixing the must-fixes in time to leave. We are one day behind schedule and there is much unfinished, but the must-fixes are done and we headed out today for Alabama.

Brent’s parents have been the absolute heros of out entire adventure to get ready to hit the road. For the past five years, they have checked on the truck and trailer in storage not far from their home at least every two months. Upon our return, they have worked over time to help us with the must-fixes, getting some of them done even before we arrived. Brent’s dad had the truck towed to a shop and had all the brakes done, windshield replaced, valves, tune-up, belts, hoses, all replaced and fixed so the truck runs great. New battery, everything all fixed up. Amazing. So when we arrived, it was drivable and we’ve only had minor things to fix on it, like new tires. There are other things needing fixing, but those are “later-fixes”. It’s drivable and safe.

So most of our must-fixes have revolved around the trailer itself since the truck is doing fine.

Monday morning, Brent’s mother and I spent the whole morning cleaning our dishes since we still didn’t have water in the trailer, but Brent and his dad got that finally fixed Monday afternoon and Tuesday was spent putting everything last minute away (except for two days of clothes and computer stuff still at the house) and fixing the last of the last minute items, and then rush back to the house for a last dinner with his family and sister, Lisa, and her two boys. We got to bed too late, cleaning everything up last minute, vacuuming the floors and cleaning out the bathroom and everything upstairs so we’d leave it nice for the next guests.

Wednesday morning, we finished up the cleaning and packing, loaded up the truck and headed for the trailer. We packed it up and got everything ready to close up the slideout and move, then headed to the storage unit for a last look see for anything we can’t leave behind and to clean it up for the arrival of our stuff from Israel that should be here in two months or so. We found two plastic bins that we used to keep our water hoses and odds and ends in. My goodness, talk about your walk down memory lane!

One of the plastic bins had been eaten up by a huge rat that had invaded our trailer for over a month while we roamed around Florida, chasing birds outside and (what we through were) mice inside. We finally killed the huge thing after giving it a free tour of Florida and running out of more gentle options, but we still have evidence of his impact on our life. How funny to find that we still had the container the bugger had chewed into, consuming most of what was inside and edible – to the mouse but not to us. He’d eaten up paint brush bristles, the plastic on wiring, everything plastic, and chewed up wood and who knows what else. We’re still living with the duct taped damage from the rat eating his way through our heating ducts, using it as a passage way through the trailer. It’s been seven years and we are still finding the reminders he left behind.

Inside one of the plastic bins, Brent found two spray bottles, one of a cleaning solution for the engine and another paint can that had completely rusted their bottoms away and rotted. Their fluids had drained all over everything in the non-draining plastic bins and rusted and ruined the plastic and metal items. Whatever they were, and some we couldn’t recognize, we tossed in the garbage, including the bins. Ugh.

But we did find some hoses and other items in really good shape, and two of the bins are still good, so we were thrilled with that find, saving us some money in replacing electrical extension cables and other parts and pieces. We’ve spent a ton of money on little bits and pieces that needed fixing and replacing, though when I add it all up, I don’t think it will be as much as I think. It just feels like it. Our bank balance is getting lower and lower as the days roll on.

We cleaned out the back of the truck that had gotten junky with parts and pieces needed for a trailer since we’d kinda tossed them in as we found them, cleaned up the storage room to make more room for the stuff coming in from Israel in a couple of months, then loaded up our bikes and returned to the trailer.

Brent’s parents met us there, heros they are, with hamburgers from Braums. Braums wins our best of the very best hamburgers and ice cream (and everything) from everywhere in the world that we have traveled. I’ll have more about them later.

We ate lunch together, wedged in the trailer among the last minute things stuffed into the trailer, then loaded up the bikes inside and started the process of readying the trailer.

I’ll go into more depth about the moving-the-trailer process later, but basically, it is a step-by-step process to make sure that every latch is closed so cupboards don’t go flying, make sure that every part and parcel is tied down, latched or secured so it doesn’t go flying, and that all the power is shut off on everything that has power in the trailer. We check inside and out multiple times, and then hook up the truck to the trailer and test the lights and brakes, and then start to move.

It felt good to get just about everything right on the first time through. Brent’s mother, a veteran of trailers and motor homes, went around behind me to make sure I got it all, which really helped because I could talk through the process with her to make sure nothing was missed. Brent’s dad helped him outside. We got it ready and then slid the slide out in.

Now, this was Kohav’s first time in the trailer. She had a good ole time running up and down and jumping on the table and desk, checking out everything, but the slideout was new. She rode on it under the kitchen table, her eyes wide and golden, terrified to move, but liking the sensation anyway. There is a lot new to her now and it will take a little time to get her used to this new life on the road.

We picked her up and put her in the truck, did the final checks, and then headed out.

Brent’s mom was crying as we left, and I know it is hard for them to watch us go. I swear, they spend more time watching us leave than we spend with them. I know it isn’t true, and they are thrilled that we aren’t so far away now, but it is still hard for them to be away from Brent and Brent to be away from them.

As we left, I asked the critical questions that have defined our trip since day one.

“Are we there yet?”

“Nope.”

“Is it still behind us?”

Brent looked carefully in the rear view mirror and considered his answer. Then with the sly grin that I adore, he announced, “Yep.”

We were on the road again.

Lorelle
Tulsa, Oklahoma to anywhere in Arkansas

After 5 years living trailer-free, we are about to move in and hit the road for real again. Amazing. So we will be off-line for a least a week while we cross the southern United States from Oklahoma towards Mobile, Alabama, and part four of our life on the road.

For those not keeping up with our story, part one was traveling back and forth across North American photographing all things beautiful and natural for almost two years, adding up over 60,000 miles on our truck and trailer. From Seattle to Florida to Alaska and back to Florida. Part two was a year and a half spent in Greensboro, North Carolina, where we learned to live in the trailer sitting still and learned how to become part of a community from scratch. Part three was moving to Israel for a six month adventure that turned into five years and the Intifada. We left as Arafat laid dead but on machines in Paris, hopefully the end of the four year uprising.

Now, we are heading towards Mobile, Alabama, for another “short term” stay living still in our trailer, revived after 5 years sitting in the hot sun and cold winters of Oklahoma.

After fixing the toilet, we finally after water in the trailer and (so far) no leaks. Delaying much of the major cleaning in the trailer for five days as we battled leaks and water problems, we dragged all of our dishes, pots, and pans, etc., to the house and Brent’s mother and I spent the whole morning washing them. What a pain, but had to be done. It was also a bit of a walk down memory lane for her.

The tiny 2 cup crock pot we carried back and forth across North America, was the one that Brent’s mother bought for him to take to college. Two plastic cups we loved to drink from because they are 1) unbreakable, 2) lightweight, and 3) memorable, are from Eskimo Joes, a popular restaurant and clothing line in Oklahoma and Kansas, also from Brent’s college days. In fact, several of the dishes and glasses we use in the trailer came from his parents, purchased lovingly and with hope as their child headed off to college and a life away from home. Little did they realize how far “away” would become.

During the Christmas tea presented by the family church, the guest speaker was a singer and musician who raised her two daughters on the road as she and her husband traveled all over singing and spreading the gospel. The theme of her talk, though, was home and what it meant to her. She spoke of her childhood and the symbol of home as security and love, as the second from the bottom of nine children. When she finally left to go to college, she spoke of the overwhelming experience of coming home for the first time, after never having been away for so long from home. And then, as a mother, the experience of preparing and waiting for her own daughter to come home from college, also never having been gone for so long away from home. As a person waiting for the home-comer, she spoke of the difference. She worked so hard to make the home ready, with small reminders of “home”, making her daughter’s favorite food and cleaning up the rooms and setting them exactly as the daughter liked it, with favorite ornaments and photographs. She related it all to “home” as “heaven” and the religious connections, but for me, it was more powerful than the religious.

I thought of how Lynda Kay and Kent always went out of their way to make sure everything was ready for our visit and how they cleared their schedule to spend as much time as possible with us. During this visit, for example, Kent gave up meetings and Sunday at church to help Brent fix the leaks in the trailer bathroom. Even when they could have spent the time with family, especially with the whole VanFossen tribe descending upon Tulsa, part of that was given up to driving us around and helping us get things ready to leave again. Last night, they were all tired and yet they hauled us to their favorite oriental restaurant and on the way home asked if there was anything we needed. I mentioned that “if it was on the way, and only if it was on the way” could we stop by a Wild Bird store to pick up something I needed. Kent said, “it’s on the way” and before I knew it, we were driving all over town to get to the bird store only to find it closed. Never a complaint or comment. Then Brent mentioned he needed a Radio Shack. At least that was “on the way”, and off we went. Whatever we need, they are there giving up their time.

They understand that the time they get to spend with their oldest and bestest son is precious. I don’t feel guilty because it isn’t me pulling him away from his family. I understand that now. It is his life and our life together, and for the past five years, I’ve been tugged around by Brent’s life, too. The first five years were me tugging him, but now, he is doing the tugging. This is his choice and while he and his family are incredibly close, Brent likes his life away and on the road. Not that he likes being away from them. He doesn’t. He hates it. But he does love the stories of adventure he brings back to the family, helping them grow a little vicariously through him.

I also think of my mother preparing for one of my visits. While her life is overfilled with busy activities and commitments, she does go overboard preparing the home for my arrival. This is another way of looking at the concept of “home” that I’m getting a better understanding of. Home isn’t just a place to come back to, it is also a place of welcome, of return, of history restored – if only for a short time.

So, we washed up all the dishes while Brent and his dad drove all over the place trying to get the truck gas tank fuel switch fixed, only to find out that it was actually the fuel pump on the other tank that was broken, and they picked up the repaired storm glass window for the trailer, and fixed the bathroom leaks to restore water. Oh, and Brent and his father installed the newly made oak doors for the new refrigerator and Brent tells me they are gorgeous. So the trailer and truck are DONE and ready. Most of the stuff inside the trailer has been laid away. I’ve packed up all the stuff in the house except for another two days of clothing and toiletries and those will be hauled to the trailer today for a final packing and loading.

Brent and his dad will pick up the old fridge from the storage unit and haul it to Kent’s friend for disposal. Then they will come back and pick up the truck (we’re using Terry’s truck today while ours is in the shop) from the repair shop and do a vehicle exchange, and then pick me up at the trailer for a final dinner with the family. Hopefully, tomorrow morning we’ll be on the road. Whew!

So apologies again for putting a delay in these journals. I’ll try to keep them up but will be unable to post them for a few days, but it is more likely that I will be falling into bed, surrounded by boxes and bags awaiting unpacking, as we sleep in truck stops and WalMart parking lots until we arrive in Mobile. Honestly, we are looking forward to this, even though it sounds horrid. We have missed traveling in our trailer, even the ugly parts of it. And sleeping next to refrigerator trucks running all night might be a refreshing change from listening to people partying in the park all night and yelling at their dogs, skate boarders tearing up the sidewalk….a nice change.

Lorelle
Tulsa, Oklahoma

A few days ago while cleaning things out, as best as I could without water, I stumbled upon the blue lake. Yes, we have EVERYTHING in our trailer, all the modern conveniences, including a blue lake. Hey, it ain’t Lake Louise (Alberta, Canada) but it is our own tiny lake.

Well, actually, the lake is no more but we have the cleanest kitchen cabinet on the planet.

One of the reoccurring themes I’m finding, as we pull everything out of the trailer and clean and inspect and toss it, is that plastic just don’t last. That’s right, the modern miracle, plastic, doesn’t hold up when exposed to the elements, inside and outside. The first evidence of this non-permanent state of plastic was found in the red and blue plastic gas and water “cans” in the back of the truck. Totally exposed to the elements for five years, these things have faded and cracked, disintegrating as soon as we touch them. Instead of red, one gas can is a weak pink. All are leaking and splintering into pieces with the slightest pressure.

The plastic “fenders” on our trailer are called “flashing” and they are dried and cracked, split in places. Bending down to loosen one of our compression tire chocks I hit one of the plastic flashings and it cracked part of it off. I’m nervous about it cracking and flying off as we travel but there isn’t time nor money to replace them right now. They have to be special ordered and we’re on our way to Alabama. That will go on the “to do in Mobile” list.

Inside the trailer, I’ve found all kinds of plastic things cracked and broken. Rubbermaid storage containers that weren’t inside storage cabinets or sealed boxes were yellow and stiff, snapping apart if pressure was applied, like a lid. Plastic containers of cleaning solvents and solutions were discolored and strange looking and sounding when I shook them, so they went into the trash along with the other plastic containers.

Getting down onto my hands and knees to get under the deep and useless cabinets we have in the kitchen corner area, I pulled out tons of different metal and plastic containers of cleaning stuff that were just too suspicious and rotten looking to be salvaged. One of the containers came out covered with massive blue goop. I thought it had leaked right through the containers bottom, not the first to do that in my search. But alas, it was much worse than that.

Deep in the depths of the corner cabinet on the floor level, I found a huge blue lake. It was indeed the color of Lake Louise, a rich blue green reflected from the sky and enhanced by the glacial sediment, but this wasn’t sediment – well, it was but of a different nature. It was soap. About three-quarters of an inch of dish soap.

I guess not long before we left Greensboro to cross the states once again, on our way to Israel, I’d purchased a gigantic 2 liter size of Dawn dish soap. I love the stuff and until I found Fairy dish soap in Israel, there was nothing to compare to Dawn and I missed it terribly. Dawn GETS the grease off of plastic, pots, and everything. Totally cuts it all down to snuff. Love it. There must have been a sale or I’d gotten it at Costco or Sam’s Club or something, but there it was. An huge plastic bottle of Dawn. But there was no dish soap in the bottle.

It had all seeped out through the cracks in the plastic. Two liters or blue dish soap had leaked out and congealed all over the bottom cabinet, spilling into a triangular area of a couple feet of blue lake.

Over time and exposure to heat and cold, all the liquid parts had evaporated and the paste that was left was horrid. I pulled out the rest of the bottle and started cleaning. The only way I could figure out how to get the stuff out was to scrap the lake-paste off and then add water and sop up the rest of the soap.

Scraping the soapy paste was easy. Getting it off the spatula was another challenge. It wouldn’t scrap into the garbage pail that was more of the rotting plastic in the trailer, so I finally got a hard plastic plate and used that to scrap the stuff onto. What a mess.

But we do have the cleanest kitchen cupboard now!

The “lake” problems didn’t end there. Yesterday, Lynda Kay and I cleaned hours worth of pots, pans, dishes, silverware, mixer and mashers, and plastics. A lot of the simple dishes I put in the dish washer and hand washed the rest of the things. While standing at the sink, I felt something odd on my foot and looked down to see water and soap seeping out from the bottom of the dish washer. Having put hardly any dish washer soap in the machine since all these needed were a little hot rinse rather than heavy cleaning, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I grabbed some towels and called for Lynda Kay to come save me.

We drained the water out and rinsed things out as best we could, figuring that a little of the dish soap lake had stuck to a few things. I was sure that it hadn’t, but with it spread everywhere, who knows. The suds were finally thinned out enough for the machine to do its job without flooding. What a mess. Now they have a really clean kitchen floor, too.

I wore my rubber gloves for washing dishes and cleaning things as much as I could, but I’m sure I missed a few because that afternoon my hands started turning red, swelling, and itching like crazy. A rash rose up with small welts and I knew that I had had a personal encounter of the intimate kind with the dish soap.

While my allergy to cigarettes is life damaging, my childhood allergy to perfumed soaps has only been annoying. Natural soaps don’t seem to bother me, but put perfume directly on my skin or any perfumed or cheap soaps and unless the spot is rinsed off completely, rash central.

As a small child, my father’s step mother wasn’t very children friendly, having none of her own and only my father as a step child at 12. Just having to rule over my father at any age would have been enough to stress out even the most patient of humans. As a grandmother, Anna Mae tried and did a fair job. She talked to us like adults, for which I was grateful, and not like we were children. One of my earliest childhood memories is of a tall plastic pink poodle filled with bubble bath that she gave me. I don’t know if it was this or something experienced previously, but one use turned me into a rash covered itching little girl. But I wouldn’t give up the pink plastic poodle, so it sat on the corner of our bathtub for years, something for me to look at but never use. When we moved from Lake Stevens to Mukilteo, the pink poodle came with us as one of the few reminders of my life prior to my parent’s divorce. It was a little reminder and connection to my father’s family, though I only think that in hindsight. It sat in the corner of the bath tub, unused and tacky, but hidden by the glass enclosure.

Coming back home years later, I mentioned to my mother how I had grown up longing to pour the bubble bath mixture from the pink poodle into my tub and glory in mounds of white bubbles, but how I had never allowed temptation to risk the repeat of the itchy rash. She laughed and told me that she had dumped out the bubble bath years ago and replaced it with water just in case I had been tempted. She’d never given it another thought. Here, I’d spent years facing down the temptation of luxury over pain. Isn’t life strange.

Decades later, I recall the anger and frustration, and silliness, of the whole thing as my hands swelled up with rash. Brent’s mother covered my hands with some allergy cream and within 24 hours the raging redness was gone.

But memories go on.

Lorelle
Tulsa, Oklahoma

Having come to an interest in sewing lately in life, I was thrilled with the 1948 Singer Sewing Machine left in my apartment in Tel Aviv. It did only one thing, straight stitch, but it did it extremely well. Loved that thing.

When my friend, Ruth, moved into her new apartment in Tel Aviv, she gave me her old Singer sewing machine. I did a little research and found that the perfect condition gold labeled Singer was an original 1929 sewing machine in absolutely incredible condition. Works like a charm. It has been converted, and not very well, to electric, but that is all fixable.

Brent’s mother, Lynda Kay, bought an old sewing machine at a garage sale years ago. The woman told her the sewing machine belonged to her grandmother. It came with the cabinet and was never converted to electricity, still with the wheel and pedal. I told her I would look it up every time I’ve come to visit, but things get crazy. So I did.

It was made in 1908 and now Singer has much more interesting information on their web site for researching their history and their sewing machines. According to their history page, this machine was made in Clydebank, Scotland, in the factory originally called the Kilbowie Scotland factory. When it was opened in 1883, it was the largest sewing machine factory in the world and hosted the largest clock tower in the world, almost 200 feet high. At one time it employed more than 12,000 workers. Wow.

To look up the serial number of a Singer Sewing Machine, check the area below the thread tension panel on the main right support side. Some machines may list the serial number on the bottom side, but it is usually visible on the machine’s topside. Then visit their Singer Sewing Machine Serial Numbers page and choose one of three choices: numbers only, single letter prefix, or double letter prefix. The link will take you to the appropriate page for finding the general information for your sewing machine. The letter prefixes tell you what factory the sewing machine was made in.

Then hop back to the history page to look up more information about the company and its history related to your machine.

Fascinating stuff.

Lorelle
Tulsa, Oklahoma

I should call this blog entry “Tippicanoe and Toilet, Too” but that was just too cutesy for me. And yes, we are still suffering from the Bathroom Blues.

Brent finally got the toilet fixed and not leaking. We turned on the water to find the water to the kitchen dead. Fixed that. Then it started leaking from the faucet in the bathroom. Replaced the faucet, after much angst and anxiety, only to have the T pipes connecting the water from the sink access to the shower leak. They are plastic pipes with a copper T fitting, a pain in the buns.

Brent’s dad, Kent, skipped church, probably spoiling his attendance record, to spend half the day crowded in the little bathroom in the trailer figuring out what to do. They twisted and torque their poor bodies into the small space, holding flashlights and yanking on plumbing to no avail. So this morning, they are off to get the truck’s fuel tank switch fixed and check in with the RV store to see what parts, pieces, and advice they might be willing to offer.

Without water, I was again screwed, so I did a “make lemonade outta lemons” thing and had Brent vacuum out the cupboards and just clean them with a bleach cleaner, then line the things with the new padding shelf liner we got. Cool stuff. I have more details on it later.

With access to the other half of the trailer, I started emptying boxes and filling up drawers and cupboards. After four hours of back and knee breaking work, the desk, couch and table are clear and visible. At least now, even if we don’t have water, we can still travel without boxes everywhere. At seven in the evening we finally stopped and took the empty boxes to the storage room, a room of stuff we still have to deal with, only to find the old fridge still there. We’d forgotten about it.

At the house, Brent’s dad called a church friend to ask what to do with the fridge (some expert) and he said, “Drop it my the mailbox in my front yard and I’ll deal with it for you.” Amazing! That’s one less pressure off of us.

I also made the executive decision to bring all our pots and pans and dishes to the house to clean, something that should have happened days ago, but I kept waiting for the water to finally work. So I will spend the day washing dishes today.

I wanted to sit in the tub and totally crash out on the bed early, but Kent and Lynda Kay reminded us that Uncle Gordon’s new wife’s daughter and her family were being featured on an episode of “Trading Spaces”, the US version of the show I adored overseas. Well, the change between the two rooms was dramatic, but the show itself was the bore’s snore. Brent and his dad both fell asleep, and I was very frustrated and bored, folding laundry and just waiting for the show to be over. Very bad. Very unfunny. The male host, Jake, is an absolute horrid bore and self-centered nothing. His little drama queen events weren’t even close to real drama, just little selfish pouts, and any theatrics were done by the family, certainly not by the staff involved. Pitiful.

Of course, I thought I was spoiled by watching the brilliant presenters and designers from the British version, but both of Brent’s parents agreed this was a huge time waster in entertainment value. Thank goodness.

So finally to bed, but up and down in the night. I have a funny jumping charlie horse style spot on the left side of my tummy that is annoying. I know it is probably related to my spastic colon or the stress of everything, but it feels like a little alien moving around inside. And this bed is totally killing our backs, so every position is agony trying to find a comfortable spot until the blood congeals as it sinks to the lowest denominator. We’ll be really glad to get into a firm bed in the trailer again.

Brent and I are both shattered and battered from the physical and mental effort to get this thing fixed up and ready. Having me down for a week sick hasn’t helped at all, but having no water continues to be a pain.

So off to do dishes. We’ve now postponed leaving by one day, on Wednesday morning, instead of Tuesday morning, to make sure we get everything done. So I have another day of Internet and then off until who knows when. Oh, joy.

Lorelle
Tulsa, Oklahoma

Yesterday morning, I came back downstairs after a huge family breakfast at Terry and Lisa’s home. Brent’s mother asked, “What happened to the glamor lady?”

Looking down at my bleach stained, holey pants and grease smudged torn t-shirt, I explained, “I’m trailer trash now.”

It’s a funny comment, but it is the truth.

Our life is now on high speed transformation between looking good for the visiting relatives and racing out to the trailer to repair and replace almost everything in the trailer.

We celebrated Thanksgiving on Friday, giving time for those flying or driving into town to arrive and get a little settled. While we came from the furthest distance, Brent’s Uncle Gordon and Aunt Ruth came from Montana and others drove up from all parts of Texas and Oklahoma. Some of the youngest cousins Brent hadn’t seen since they were tiny babies, so it was a big shock for him. For me, most of these people were old acquaintances met along the way for the past 10 years, but almost all of them strangers I felt I was meeting for the first time. Some are thicker and thinner than they were, but for the most part, they seem a lot happier than I’ve seen them before, and this is a good thing.

Wednesday and Thursday were spent getting food ready for the Friday dinner, held at the church’s rentable halls, since few people’s homes could accommodate all that food and all those people, with area for the children to play basketball and chase each other around. There were 34 adults and 9 children. And food for days.

Brent made pumpkin pies from scratch that were heavenly (yes, I’ll get you the recipe) and I made a really good potato and pumpkin roasted veggie dish with garlic and rosemary. I also made Christmas Cookies from the new recipe I posted last week, and they all turned out great, but I turned out bad in the cookie decorating field. I had to put things away twice in the decorating process, which probably had a traumatic effect on my design skills and the frosting, but I declared them better than a four year old could do and just let them be as they were. I either obviously need more practice, or I’m hopeless in the cookie design business.

On the trailer, we finally got the water hooked up and put a little bleach into the system. As Brent went around checking things, I started to scrub out the kitchen sink with its little rusty stains and massive gunk. But the water pump kept running on and on, so we knew there was a leak somewhere. I finally found it in the “basement” near the pump. Brent went in with towels and a flashlight and discovered that the toilet was leaking fresh water. Eventually, the toilet came out (about 9PM after more back and forth between the house and the trailer and Thanksgiving family eating and events) and Brent figured out that we needed to replace a part rather than the whole toilet. So early Friday, he dashed to the RV shop and got the part, then back to pick me up and race to the church and Thanksgiving luncheon. Friday afternoon, after eating way too much food, though I was very good (Brent wasn’t), we were back in the trailer, out of our dress clothes and digging in the toilet to replace the broken part. Brent got the whole thing back in, only to discover 1) the toilet seat was broken, and 2) the damn thing was still leaking. He pulled it out again and found that the instructions weren’t specific regarding a tiny spring he’d found in the process that had come off, and without that little spring, the valve won’t stay closed. So he fixed the spring (guessing), and reinstalled the whole toilet again.

Once that was working, we discovered that the kitchen sink faucet, the one still waiting after three days to be rinsed from the 30 second scrub I gave it, didn’t work. Brent took it apart, cursing, and eventually discovered that the water came into the faucet fine. It just didn’t come out the faucet. He blew on the faucet and water sprayed back out the open handle area, and poked and prodded, deciding that we had to buy a new faucet and pissed off because the kitchen cupboards are so small and narrow (and deep – wasted space) that he really can’t get into them to the faucet. It took almost 6 hours to install this one over 8 years ago, so he was not happy about wedging and twisting his even larger body into the tiny hole.

I asked him to put it back together and try again before buying a new one. He told me he had taken it apart and put it back together twice already with no result.

“Was that before or after you blew through the faucet and cleaned it out?”

“It doesn’t matter. It won’t work.”

“Was that before or after you blew through the faucet and cleaned it out?”

“It won’t work. I have to buy another.”

“Brent, answer the question. Was that before or after you blew through the faucet and cleaned it out?”

“Before. But it doesn’t matter. It won’t work.”

“Put it back together and try it again.”

“I’m wasting my time.”

“Good, because you are wasting mine. Wouldn’t it be easier to put it back together and try it again to see if it will work than spending money we don’t have on a new one and hours we don’t have to waste.”

“Fine, you think you’re so smart.”

He put it back together and it worked like a charm. Yes, there are times when I am “so smart”. Thankfully, I got a hug and kiss as a reward instead of a pout that I was right and he was wrong. He’s used to being wrong and having me be right…it’s easier that way.

The water pump went back on to test the system and I thought “yeah, I can finally clean the sink out!” and the pump kept clicking in over and over again.

Brent discovered that the bathroom sink was leaking now. He told me that all he needed to do was to get a new end screen piece for the bathroom sink and it would stop leaking. I shook my head and took the piece out of his hand. “And why would it stop leaking?”

“The end piece is filled with gunk and the water runs out sideways from the faucet.”

“And this has what to do with the end piece?”

“Well, it needs to be replaced.”

I blew out the small screened piece with my mouth, little bits of gravel blowing into the sink, and screwed it back in place.

“Let me see if I understand. The bathroom sink leaks because of this end piece, right? Yet, it leaks when the faucet is turned off and the end piece is off the faucet. I don’t see what the two pieces have to do with each other since the water is stopped by the knobs and not by the end piece.”

He stomped into the little bathroom and together we discovered that the seals around the handles were rotted. Now, we could have just replaced the seals, but we decided to just replace the faucet since we have hated it since day one. So off again to the hard ware store nearby.

We found a decent single handled faucet for USD$38. The next step up was $58 and I tried to get a salesman to help us understand the difference even though they were basically the same. But he was a slow talking southerner, telling stories along with selling, spending 20 minutes with each customer instead of 2 minutes. So I gave up waiting after the fourth story. We decided on the cheaper one.

At the trailer, we discovered that this one had been returned, so we had to go through, piece by piece, to make sure all the pieces were there. Two seemed to be missing, but there were others that looked similar enough, we felt it worth of trying. Unfortunately, after trying, Brent found a manufacturing flaw. The cold water inlet pipe was too close too the restraining mount screw and you couldn’t bolt it to the cabinet without bending and moving the copper inlet pipe away from the screw, something we didn’t have the equipment or the patience to do, since it would also mean realigning all the pipes under our tiny sink in a the tiny cupboard space.

He packed it all up better than we got it and returned it. Found there was only one other box of the same faucet and it, too, had been returned with the same flaw. So he bought the more expensive version, which looked much better, and returned to the trailer to give it another go.

Four hours later, we had it installed after taking the entire sink out and making another trip to the hardware store. We needed to replace the putty that held the sink in place in the cabinet and found our RV putty was dried out. So Brent told the guy at Lowe’s hardware what he wanted and was doing, and the guy said, “I always use Plumbers Putty.” So for less than two dollars, Brent got the plumbers putty and back at the trailer, read the instructions which said, “Do not use on plastic.” Well, we have plastic pipes, plastic sink, and everything is plastic in that trailer. Brent just cleaned up what was already on the sink and made that work, since it was still good enough. Damn.

We got it all installed and then found leaks at the joints that send water from the inlet to the shower. These have a copper T going into plastic, a nasty combination once messed with from the original. It was just after nine at night so Brent called it quits. We’re going out this morning to hopefully finish this.

And my kitchen sink is still not rinsed. It should be REALLY clean after all this sitting for days on end, or all the enamel will have peeled off from the cleanser.

I’ve put away a lot of things, but more in piles than “away”. While Brent is working in the bathroom, I can’t get to the bedroom or hall closets. So I make piles on the couch of bathroom and bedroom storage stuff. I can’t put the kitchen stuff away because everything needs to be washed out and there isn’t any water. So it sits on the floor around the sink and fridge and table, waiting its turn in the process. Hopefully today the water will finally be working and I can start 8 hours of washing dishes and cupboards. Then most of the clutter can be put away.

I still have to go through the stuff we moved into the storage unit and clean that up and possibly bring that to the house. Brent wants the storage unit empty so our stuff from Israel can fill it first and then the rest of the storage stuff can go in. We also have to get our bikes out and into the trailer for transporting.

I have to pack up all the stuff here at the house and get it loaded and put away in the trailer. On Monday, Brent has to get the truck fixed (we have two gas tanks and the switch over valve isn’t working – probably clogged) and we are leaving on Tuesday. It is now Sunday. Think I will survive?

Lorelle
Tulsa, Oklahoma

Yesterday, Brent went out to the trailer alone while I went through the attic at his parent’s house to consolidate, pitch, toss, and distribute (to us in the trailer and to charity). He finished the installation of the new refrigerator, making a special bracket to house our CD/AM/FM car radio over the fridge. The radio and VCR was there with the old refrigerator, but the VCR won’t fit with the taller fridge but the radio just squeezes in.

We’d had the trailer carpet thoroughly cleaned by a professional on Friday and it’s now dry, so Brent beached the walls around the table and screwed the table back into the floor and cleaned up everything around the outside of the trailer, closed up the slide out (all by his lone self! I’m so proud.) and then prepared to haul the trailer to the house. The appointment this morning for the repair of the trailer tire axles and bearings was for seven in the early AM, so it made more sense to him to work late to get the trailer ready to go and park it outside of the house than to get up early the next morning and get the trailer ready to go. Anything that keeps him from sleeping in, he’ll avoid.

Unfortunately, there was a bit of a hitch. Minor, but still a hitch. Only one brake light would work on the back of the trailer. None of the rest of the trailer lights work. He replaced the bulb in the other brake light, but it still didn’t work. So he called me and I drove out there and followed him to the house through the dark, praying no cops would spot the dead lights on the trailer.

At the house, Brent got out to check the trailer brakes and found that the left ones felt fine but he couldn’t even touch the hubs of the right ones. Totally heated up and locked brakes. The brakes are working but one of them is locked up and cooking the brake lining. We just went through this with my father’s motor home, so we are becoming experts in locked up and frozen brakes.

After discussing it with his father and uncle (our local RV experts), they decided to allow themselves an hour to drive the 10 miles to the brake repair center, making a stop or so along the way to cool the brakes. They left in the morning and got down there only to find out that the damn shop had moved 5 miles closer to the house. So they drove back, a bit late for the appointment, and worried about overheating the brakes, but arriving fine. Brent and his dad left the truck and trailer there and headed to breakfast and then an RV parts shop to look for new window gear (RV parts call it a window “operator”) for two of our windows and some other parts and pieces needing replacing. Then they came back for lunch and called the brake shop and they said “two more hours”. Two more hours turned into more and more and more and now we’re leaving it there overnight (but it is finally done) and will pick it up in the morning and go get 10 new tires.

That’s right. Ten new tires. Brent got such a deal from Hercules Tire in Tulsa, we’re getting the six tires on the truck replaced and the four on the trailer. Two or three of the tires on the trailer were bought on our way across the states from North Carolina to the storage facility, but after five years sitting in the hot sun and freezing temps, they aren’t in very good condition.

The total on the tires is expected to be just over $800 for the 10 tires and the brakes on the trailer will be at least five hundred for the four tires and two axles. To fix the brakes on the truck earlier and replace the shattered windshield, bad ceiling liner inside the truck, all new hoses and odds and ends in the truck came to just under $1000. So we will be just under $3000 for the wheel and engine parts of this project of un-storaging our trailer after 5 years. Whew!

I spent the day in the attic, a much less costly endeavor. I uncovered our Corelle dishes, mailed back to the family after breaking too many while crossing Highways 10 and 20 through the southern United States. I told Brent that since we know the trailer is going to Alabama and pretty much staying there, let’s take the “good china”. We can still use the plastic dishes, but I miss the Corelle.

I also found a bathroom rug and was pissed because I’d just bought a new one as the old one was rotted and sun stained. Then I picked it up. The rubber backing disintegrated in my hands. Okay, so 5 years in the dark attic (with heat, humidity and freezing temps (uninsulated attic)) can also result in rubber and plastic rot. I did find a bunch of bars of soap, shampoo, body soap, and other odds and ends that don’t go bad over time. That will save us a bit of money.

I managed to consolidate our area of the closet down to about 10 smaller boxes and squish them into the corners so there is much more room to move in there. Or more room to fill up with other shit. That’s how family storage stuff works.

I also finally got a hold of my mother. Several days ago she emailed the news of one our long time family friends, Flo Hein. She has inoperable lung cancer. They found it at the end of the week when she went in for an MRI for her back and because she had pneumonia. The lung tests revealed the lung cancer. The MRI the next day told a worse story. Her back has been bothering her with great pain over the past three months. Actually for several years but so bad she can hardly function for the past three months. She finally relented to go to my mom’s back surgeon and he ordered an MRI before the surgery. The MRI showed that the cancer had spread and her entire spine is infested. It is everywhere. Their diagnosis? Three to five days to live.

I can’t believe it. I know she has had terrible trouble with osteoporosis and circulation for years, making it painful to walk and get around. The lack of exercise had taken a toll on her spine, of course. But to walk in for an MRI, find out you have lung cancer, and then have the MRI and find out you have three to five days to live?

I called my mom and left a message after the first email informing me of the lung cancer. After a couple of days without an answer, I called my dad, told him, and he said he’d go visit her and report back. When two more days went by, and more messages to my mom, she finally called me. She’s been at the hospital with Flo a lot, helping her make final arrangements. She told me about the spread of the cancer and how Flo is fighting it off with her normal piss and vinegar, but the pneumonia is killing her faster than the cancer. Her immune system is totally shot. She also told me that Flo, in typical fashion, had to stop outside the door of the hospital for one last cigarette before going in for the MRI.

Mom told me that Flo is in so much pain, they are sedating her now a lot. She is getting forgetful and fuzzy with so much medication, so it isn’t worth it for me to come visit. And she’d hate it for me to see her looking crippled and miserable, so as much as I want to be there, I agree to both of their wishes. But it hurts.

Flo and Bud Hein took my mother under their wings a million years ago as an up and coming whipper snapper of a real estate agent. Helped her become a sales manager, eventually running their South Everett real estate office, which my mother left to open her own company, with their blessings. Flo and Bud practically raised me from my earliest years as semi-grandparents-cum-great-aunt-and-uncle. When Bud died of cancer, it was terrible for me. Those two were inseparable and he was such a great guy. Always full of piss and vinegar, too, ready with a joke. He taught me to use colorful swear words and would be proud of the full blue vocabulary I have now. But both were seriously religious while being unorthodox in their lifestyle.

Both were heavy drinkers, smokers, and party animals. They loved the high life, but the high life didn’t love them back. In their hey day, they had a ton of money and rolled in it with class and flamboyance. In their lesser days, they led quiet, respectful lives, trying to make a family with reluctant step kids. Flo never had any children and did the best she could with Bud’s kids and the various nieces and nephews, and my brother and I.

Flo taught me about class. Brassy class, but class all the same. She has the most delicate and gorgeous legs and would sit in a skirt all the time, ankles crossed, lady-like. I’d clomp around and act like a boy, and she’d carefully set the example of how to be brassy but classy and lady-like at the same time. When I was closing down my singing career, I kinda created a persona when singing in the bars based upon her personality and style. She always looked rich and sophisticated, her jewelry and outfits all coordinated and high class. Even when she and Bud had to declare bankruptcy and times were tough, she never stopped caring about other people, gathering really good friends close. I loved to visit her, but I couldn’t stay for long because of the smoking.

We’d talk on the phone and exchange letters once in a while. After Bud died, she sold the farm outside of Snohomish and moved into a small apartment in Everett, then, as the finances dwindled, to a smaller place in Marysville and then into a much poorer assisted living facility nearby. I never heard her complain about her life getting smaller and poorer. She only had good things to say to everyone and a kind ear. I can’t imagine my life without her in it.

I’ve lost so many over the past few years and I’ve hated being away from them for so long. Yet I suffer for my mother because these precious people who I so looked up to since childhood are my mother’s peers and mentors. They are her best friends and she is there, watching them die, cleaning up their left overs and helping them through the process. She is the one really suffering and I am getting it second hand. It doesn’t diminish the pain for either of us, but I want to acknowledge the stress she is going through as her friends from her childhood and early adult life depart. It’s part of life but it sucks.

As I begin the final preparations for moving back into the trailer and beginning this new chapter in our life, my heart aches for the memories, the losses, and the wishing-what-was-was-agains.

Lorelle
Tulsa, Oklahoma

A friend sent me a link to an amazing new technique for getting your teeth cavities fixed up. It’s at The Expat Telegraph discussing new tooth dealing techniques and truly worth a look.

Technology is finally catching up with dentists.

Lorelle
Tulsa, Oklahoma

There was a lot of wonderful information about teas and cookies in the two programs I attended and I thought I’d share some of it with you. The following recipes come from the Stash Tea and Celestial Seasonings web sites and there are links to those sites for more recipes. I recommend visiting them because there are hundreds of recipes for not only drinking tea but cooking with tea. Amazing. If you are looking for an interesting turkey dinner for Christmas or Thanksgiving this year or next, consider cooking with tea. They have incredible turkey and chicken recipes that include tea as a main ingredient.

Tea Information Web Sites

• Celestial Seasonings Tea Company
• Republic Tea Company
• Stash Tea Company
• Sally’s Place and Cooking With Tea by Diana Rosen
• The Tea Muse
• The Fragrant Leaf
• Tea Market Report
• Tea and Coffee Trade Journal
• Darjeeling Tea Information

Tea Recipes
Hot Spiced Tea
From Stash Tea and Joan Broughton, Mission, Texas
2 qts. STASH Orange Spice tea
2 c. water
2 c. sugar
2 large cans pineapple
1 1/2 c. lemon juice
3 c. orange juice
1 stick cinnamon
1 t. whole cloves – tied in cheesecloth
Directions:
Pour 2 qt. boiling water over 8 teabags. Brew 5 minutes, remove tea bags, set aside. Boil 2 c. each water and sugar together 10 minutes to make syrup. Add remaining ingredients. Bring to boil. Simmer 20 minutes. Remove cloves and cinnamon. Serve hot.

Apple Cinnamon Shake
From Stash Tea
For each 16 oz glass:
2 cups vanilla ice cream
2 Stash Apple Cinnamon tea bags
1/4 tsp. cinnamon ( optional )
Directions:
In a blender, mix ingredients until fully blended. ( cut open tea bags and mix contents with ice cream ). To Serve: Top with whipped cream

Peppermint Fields
From Stash Teas
For each 16 oz glass:
2 cups vanilla ice cream
2 Stash Peppermint tea bags
1/4 tsp. vanilla syrup ( optional )
Directions
In a blender, mix ingredients until fully blended. ( cut open tea bags and mix contents with ice cream ) . To Serve: Garnish with fresh mint leaves

Creamsicle Smoothie
From Stash Teas
5 Stash Orange Spice Tea bags
1 Stash Peppermint tea bag
1 cup boiling water
1 1/2 cups orange juice
2 tablespoons honey
1 vanilla ice cream (frozen yogurt, sherbet, or sorbet may be substituted)
1 cup ice
Directions:
Brew Stash Orange Spice and Peppermint tea in boiling water, steep for 4 minutes. Let cool. Pour into blender adding orange juice, honey, vanilla ice cream and ice. Mix ingredients until fully blended.
To Serve: Garnish with whipped cream
Serves 4

Mango Passionfruit Cheese Cake
From Stash Teas
6 Stash Tea Mango / Passionfruit tea bag contents
2 8 oz container of cream cheese softened (Fat Free may be used with only a slight difference in appearance and texture.)
2 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1 6 oz or 9 inch graham cracker pie crust.
Directions:
In a large bowl, combine the contents of 6 Mango / Passionfruit tea bag contents, cream cheese and sugar. Mix well with an electric mixer. Add eggs and blend until smooth. Pour into pie crust and bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. Cool in refrigerator at least 3 hours.

I didn’t even know you could use tea to flavor cheese cake or anything else baked. Wow!

Peppermint Cucumber Salad
From Celestial Seasonsings
Yogurt, mint, and cucumbers are a staple of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cooking. You can remove the seeds from the cucumber if you like.
2 Peppermint tea bags
1/2 cup white vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup low-fat or nonfat yogurt
2 large cucumbers, peeled and sliced
Steep the tea bags in the vinegar for 20 minutes. Remove and discard the tea bags. Add the sugar and yogurt. Mix well. Pour the mixture over the sliced cucumbers. Toss and chill for 10 minutes.
Serves: 4
Preparation Time: 30 minutes
Chill Time: 10 minutes

Raspberry Zinger Vinaigrette
From Celestial Seasonings and Jennifer and Mo Siegel and their book “Cooking With Tea Cookbook”
2 Raspberry Zinger tea bags
1/2 cup white vinegar
3/4 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon sugar
Place the tea bags and vinegar in a jar. Steep the tea bags for 20 minutes. Remove bags and gently squeeze the last bit of flavor from the bags before discarding. Add the remaining ingredients to the vinegar and shake.
Serves 4 to 5

Raspberry Zinger Chicken
From Celestial Seasonings and Jennifer and Mo Siegel and their book “Cooking With Tea Cookbook”
1 cup white vinegar
4 Raspberry Zinger tea bags
2 boneless chicken breasts, halved
1/4 cup chopped yellow onion
1/4 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup heavy cream
2 Tbsp. butter
1 tsp. salt
Pour vinegar into a large bowl and add the 4 tea bags. Let steep 15 minutes, then place halved chicken breasts in bowl and cover. Refrigerate at least one hour but no longer than 3 hours. Melt butter in large frying pan over medium heat, and then fry chicken 4 minutes on each side. Remove chicken and set aside. Add onions to pan and sauté until clear. Then add chicken broth, heavy cream, 4 tablespoons of Raspberry Zinger vinegar and chicken breasts to your pan of sautEd onions. Cover and simmer 5-10 minutes more, until flavors are well mingled and sauce is slightly thickened, then serve.
Serves 4.

Oh, there are plenty more, so check out Celestial Seasons and Stash and the sites I’ve listed above for even more extraordinary recipes with tea. I had no idea!

Christmas Cookie Recipes
This recipe comes from the Will Rogers United Methodist Church of Tulsa’s women’s ministry called “Heart Like His”. What is so great, the instructor said, about this recipe is that the cookies are hard enough to stay together for the frosting and decorating but soft enough for eating.

Christmas Cookie Recipe
3 eggs
2 softened sticks of butter or margarine
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups flour
Cream together all ingredients, adding the flour slowly at the end. Chill for one hour (critical!) And separate into four parts, keeping the rest chilled and working on one at a time. Roll them out to form a flat smooth surface and cut out the cookie shapes with a cookie cutter dipped in flour.
Bake for 10 – 12 minutes until slightly golden brown at 350F 75C). Let cool and then frost.

Butter Cream Frosting
1/2 cup butter, softened (for pure white frosting use white crisco)
1/4 cup milk
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla or almond flavoring
1 pound /2 kilo) powdered sugar
Combine in mixer until smooth. Cover the bowl with damp towel while working to keep the frosting soft. Divide into sections and color with food coloring paste (darker color results than with the food coloring liquid) and decorate once the frosting or glaze is slightly dried. To make a thin glaze, add a bit more milk.

Are you hungry yet!

Lorelle
Tulsa, Oklahoma

As part of the outreach program and women’s ministry of Brent’s family’s church, his mother, Lynda Kay, is one of the main minds and bodies behind a very unusual tea. It is a women’s tea held every month or two at the church’s huge social activities center, and it is only for women, though the occasional man does pitch in. This, in and of itself, is not unusual. What is unusual is that there is a breakfast, then three mini-workshops/classes then a luncheon tea and a guest speaker. What is even more unusual is that more than 500 women show up for this “tea”.

Oh, there is plenty more unusual to be found, but for them, this is “how it is done properly”.

Each church member participating invites friends, family, and whoever they meet to the tea. They decorate their table(s) with their own table cloth, china, glasses, napkins, and centerpiece, making each table unique. There is usually a theme and this time was “festivities” to go with Thanksgiving and Christmas, and cover the next two months until the next tea. The tables for this tea were phenomenal. Each one was unique with some featuring huge variations on santa Claus, angels, bouquets of floral arrangements, small Christmas trees, tea pots from ancient times or dolled up to be fancy pots, wreaths, you name it. One of my personal favorites was one decorated with a white fuzzy cloth cut to look like it was dripping snow and ice off the edge of the table, and it featured a total snow scene with a two foot tall snow man in the middle, complete with stick arms. Snow flakes in Styrofoam and plastic decorated everything. It was amazing.

As I walked around to check out and photograph the tables before the hoards showed up, everyone was eager to show me their different tables. I noticed one table with a striking metallic gold ribbon that reminded me of Mrs. Kelly’s (my “adopted” grandmother) Thanksgiving centerpiece from my childhood and commented on how lovely the texture was. The woman grinned and announced proudly that this was her favorite thing. “I got that on a present over 20 years ago and, lordy, how many things I’ve found to use it on.” She went on and on about the uses, from decorating the table, mantle, centerpieces, doors, etc., but what amazed me is that of all the beautiful things on the table, this metallic gold ribbon, beginning to look a little overused, was her personal pride stone. She was totally thrilled I’d noticed. I told her how I also loved the use of the fake red roses to make the centerpiece and how, after living in Israel for so long, Christmas would now be associated with the ever-winter blooming roses (instead of blooming snow), and she said, “Isn’t that nice. You know, I thought about putting the ribbon in the roses but decided to line the table with it. I think it was the right decision.” I could do nothing else but agree with her and her love for her ribbon.

Another woman involved with the production of the event, Joan, is an absolute sweetheart and she found me just as I had finished my inspection of the tables. I told her that I’d looked at all of them, but she insisted on hand holding me through them again, pointing out specifics, and specific people, as we went, so I got the royal tour as well as my self-guided one. I have to admit, though, I saw many new things on my way back through as each table features so many details, you just don’t get to see them all at once.

The food for the tea is provided by the women of the church. Brent’s mother and a few other ladies had been cooking for the past two days solid and all morning. Lynda Kay baked 15 cakes the first day and another 10 or so the next, along with making up the salads and main course. Besides being one of the official cake makers, she is the official cutter and slicer, she says. No one else likes to cut the onions, celery and carrots and stuff, and when they do, they go for the bigger chunks to speed up the process. Not her. They are cut finely and perfectly and while it takes time , they are done right, so they leave her to it. The hours standing and slicing and dicing takes its toll on her back and feet, so right after the tea was done and we got home, she was under family orders to sit and do nothing. And she did…sorta. She can’t sit still for very long but I held her down as best I could.

The whole thing was a family affair. Brent’s sister, Lisa, helped her mother decorate their table together and Kent, Brent’s dad, pitched in along with Lisa for the clean-up afterwords. Everyone helped. To feed 500 people and accomodate all of the activities, workshops, and food going on around, it takes an army of volunteers.

The food was incredible. There was breakfast muffins and juices for the early attendees. The lunch was buffet style with a lovely chicken casserole, two green salads with fruits and vegetables, cherry/cranberry/marshmallow salad, and a bread roll. Deserts were a chocolate cake with white peppermint candies frosting and a fantastic yellow cake covered with an unusual tasting cherry mixture. Very excellent. The lines for the food went fairly quickly and everyone seemed to have more than enough food, which was a nice change from some of the skimpy food things I’ve been to.

Before the lunch, though, there were three 25 minute workshops – more mini classes. The idea behind the mini-ness was to provide a “taste” of the different programs, events, and people within the church. I attended a charming “introduction to international holiday tea traditions” and another one on cookie decorating for the holidays. I asked Lynda Kay if the church offered classes on tea and cookies and she said “no”. Same answer for the rest of the programs presented. So I told her I was missing the “sample of what’s available in the church” part of the message. She explained that it didn’t matter as long as people had fun and saw what was possible, meeting the people and feeling the energy and commitment to the church. Okay. Setting an example. This I understand, but the tea and cookie class could have been three hours long and I would have loved every minute. Most of the programs had a serious religious slant, and I’ve had enough religion to last quite a while. They included “books as gifts” (religious), “saving money tips” (family and religious oriented – god will provide but you have to clip the coupons), “gifts from the heart” (religious hand-made gifts), “making holiday traditions” (new ways to bring religion into your family), etc.

The tea traditions around the world was fascinating, but unfortunately the speaker spent 10 minutes praising god and the women’s tea program and not enough on tea itself. But I heard she got better as she progressed through the three repeated programs. The cookie speaker created fabulous cookies, but unfortunately apologized every time she opened her mouth before saying anything of value. She had so much good information to share and we’d have to wait through the apology for whatever she was about to do or say, and then she’d spill out the info.

At least four times she repeated, “Now, I’m sorry to say this, and it is to help me remember and not you, and I’m sorry but I have to remember that making cookies is not about perfect cookies. I’m sorry but perfect ones I do later for the neighbors. When working with my kids, I’m sorry but I have to remember this for me, it is about quality time with the mommie and the children and not about the perfect cookies. Sorry for saying that.”

I wanted to slap her silly after the second time, imagine how frustrated I was after the fourth!

But she had great information and really did amazing cookie decorations. I’ll provide the recipe she gave along with info on tea in the next blog entry.

Brent’s sister, Lisa, who was also helping with the tea and co-hosting the table with her mother, and I decided to bag out on the third workshop and check out the pretty tables. The only other program of interest to me was the money savings one and Lisa had just come from it and she said that while some of it was interesting, it wasn’t much new information. Mostly dedicated towards people with young children with tips like find the restaurants which give kids free meals and eat there, and only order water with your meal because the sodas are really expensive and you can drink 4 at home for the price of 1 at a restaurant. I think sodas are a big money waster anyway as they are bad for you and expensive, so we rarely get more than gas water or water with our meals anyway, and I don’t have kids, so she admitted that little of that program would have been of interest to me. I agreed and we went to check out the tables.

Being around so many American women, I was thrilled to see so many southern religious women have given up the puff and bad hair days. But there are still a few who insist on four hours of back combing and ratting to create these horrendous beehives from the 40s and 50s – 1700s – layered with enough lacquer (hair spray) to wall off a herd of cattle. Shoot, the Israelis should build the security fence out of this kind of hair spray. It’d be one very strong but almost invisible fence. Boy, I saw some big bad hair. When will all those brilliant make over shows grab these women and slice their big hair off? These are probably the same women who hate men’s hair pieces but refuse to give up their own.

But everyone was nice and kind and very surface social. I’d tried hard to forget about the surface social crap. “Hi, how are you?” “Fine, you?” “Fine.” “Nice day, isn’t it?” “Oh, just lovely.” And it is piss pouring outside but these people are repeating verses they don’t even listen to. It is just part of the ritual without true meaning. I hate it. Besides the “fines” it was nice to visit with people I knew slightly and others new. I sat next to Brent’s Aunt Dorothy, and while I tried to make the conversation interesting, she followed the surface stuff as is appropriate to the social situation. There were a lot of distractions, and I know she loves a good debate and intellectual conversation, so I just went along for the ride, too. The food was good. And I loved how Dorothy could identify immediately what the flavors in the cherry desert were. We were all trying to guess and she had it in one bite. Amazing.

The organization of the child care for the tea was also a work of art. The older kids were all collected up and taken to a nearby high school for a swim. The babies were taken care of in special rooms dedicated to this in the church, and mothers were given pagers so they could be notified if there were any problems. Amazing coordination. Very professional.

All of it was professional and well done. Donations were accepted in baskets near the door and you could put in whatever amount you felt appropriate. This method does some interesting things. One, it actually does pay for most of the costs. They also sell books and other gift items to help offset the costs. According to Lisa and her mother, this totally pays for itself and no money comes from the church. Any left over goes to the church, though. By accepting donations, they keep the group as a non-profit and it also keeps the food inspectors away because the women don’t have to have food handling permits and meet all the rest of the requirements for food safety, though they are fanatical. More so than most restaurants. You don’t have to pay and you don’t have to eat, so everything is voluntary. Neat trick.

The fact that this is a self-supporting ministry is amazing. Over 500 ladies attended from all over the state, not just from Tulsa. They estimated that about 30% were church members and the rest non-members. Their hope is to set such an example, people can’t help but want to join. According to Lynda Kay, about 15 people have moved themselves and their families to the church over the past four years of these efforts. To me, that isn’t much of a return on such an incredible investment of effort, but what I found in reality is that this effort raises the public awareness of this particular church, its efforts in the community, and creates a bond with other churches. Creating a church “community” is really important, and I see this as a tremendous PR effort on behalf of that. And it also provides a service, time for busy women to socialize and come together, though I’d have like to see a little more social and a lot longer workshops, but it worked, which is even more amazing.

It was fun to be there and I met some really interesting people. I’m glad I went. I don’t know how Brent’s mother survives it, but then I’ve done similar exhausting things, but they didn’t involve food. So I understand, appreciate and emphasis with the exhaustion level.

Lorelle
Tulsa, Oklahoma

The fridge is out!!! Yeah!!! It wasn’t nearly as hard as we thought it might be. Brent removed the instrument panel, after having a bit of trouble removing the dried up sealed screw plug covers, with ease and carefully disconnected the wiring and propane plumbling. This old fridge ran off of electric and propane and 12v battery. The new one will run only off propane and 110v electricity, but we have an inverter which permits pulling 110v from our 12v batteries. That’s why we have the deep cycle marine batteries.

Anyway, after disconnecting from the panel in the outside of the trailer, he and his dad tipped and slid the fridge out and carried it out to the truck. The advertised weight of the fridge is 120 lbs 4kg) and the two of them managed without a problem. They had to be careful of the sharp edges (they wore heavy work gloves) and the tubing on the back, but it went very smoothly.

The hole left behind is amazing. Without the outside vent cover, anyone can climb into our trailer through the hole and fridge opening left behind. For the night or two it will be empty, we’re not worried. With the cover in place, who would know that the fridge was gone? But it is an entertaining hole. Both Brent and his dad came through while I was photographing it to make faces and I realized it would make an awesome puppet theater stage!

I vacuumed it out and pulled the rotting fiberglass insulation out to find mud dabber wasps had made their nests in there. Several of them. I’d never heard of these before so the muddy cocoon nests were interesting to me. Brent told me it was a good thing we changed out the fridge now in November instead of in June. We’d be screaming and running for our lives from these vicious wasps. I don’t know what they are, so I’m not sure if he is teasing me. I’ll have to look them up now. Something more to do. As if I don’t have enough to do.

I asked Brent to buy some small boards to reinforce the fridge cabinet from the inside so I could add shelves on the outside over the desk. So we made a list of what we needed, and he added some electrical components to fix the wiring up better on the inside of the fridge compartment and we closed everything up and headed to Home Depot for parts and pieces. There are a lot of wires running inside of the fridge compartment, including stereo and TV/VCR wires, and wires to the heating/air conditioning controls, so we want to attach those securely to the walls and then put the new insulation back on.

In the truck, Brent hadn’t even started the engine when my new cell phone rang. It was Brent’s dad saying that Lisa had called from the office and they have a huge fridge sitting inside the office waiting for us. It is Thursday and we ordered this Tuesday. Incredible. Ebay, you are wonderful!

We called the office and they said it was inside and not in the way and that we could pick it up tomorrow, so we headed to Home Depot. On this visit, I took more time to really look around, not as shell shocked with captilistic gizmos and gadgetry, and got a bunch of odds and ends cleaning supplies, electrical and “stuff” that we needed. The insulation we wanted was seriously fire proof and heat resistant, but they didn’t have heat resistant. Said that was a specialty item that either had to be special ordered or go to a fireplace or specialty builder supplyer. We hunted through the specs and decided that heat resistant wasn’t that important, since the stuff that was in there certainly wasn’t even close to heat resistant – merely cheap, (we’re worried about it being next to the stove, but it is through two thin walls plus the insulation) so we went with encapsulated fiberglass, a “new” fiberglass insulation that is wrapped in sealed plastic so you don’t get the fibers all over the place.

Unfortunately for us, since we live in an irregular house, so to speak, it comes in standard 15″ width to fit between standard 16″ studs. The fridge is 24″ deep, so we got a small bag (huge anyway) and we’ll just run two strips and cut off the excess to the back of the fridge compartment. I’m thrilled about having at least most of the fiberglass sealed. It’s thick too, which will help with the insulation. The back and top of that compartment is exposed to the outside so in the really cold areas, it is a biting wind that comes through.

Since we haven’t been near cold in over 8 years, I don’t expect this to be a problem REAL SOON!

We headed home to get ready for a pizza (yeah!!! Not only meat and cheese on the same plate but pork and cheese!!!!!) with Brent’s parents. There, Brent got a call from the carpet cleaning guy who admitted that he didn’t think he could confidently handle the mildew on the carpet and he recommended someone else that goes to Brent’s family’s church. With a quick phone call, we are set up at 2PM tomorrow for the guy to show up and clean the entire trailer carpet and couch. I’m overwhelmed.

This has turned out to be a perfect day. Fridge out, fridge arrived, carpet going to be cleaned, and ending with pizza covered with cheese, sausage and shrimp, a perfect day. Tomorrow, hopefully, things will even be better. With the fridge in, we can move into the campground and the serious cleaning and restocking can occur.

Right now, Brent’s plan is to make appointments (we hope) for Monday and haul the trailer to get the tire bearings repacked and brakes checked, change tires on truck and trailer, and then pull it into the campground in the evening. That’s a lot to do, but I hope it all works out. We are several days late getting into a campground, but we can move with speed when the speed is called upon.

So good things are happening…but it makes me nervous. None of our past travel preps have gone this good. We are great attractors of pain and suffering, so a part of me is waiting in the wings to go “ah-HA! I knew it was too good to be true!” I’m holding that part back, but I know it is lurking.

Lorelle
Tulsa, Oklahoma