For me, it's an odd realization that summer is already on its home stretch. I can see its finish-line. From the time I saw the first crocus, all the way to today, it has been nothing less than a temporal aberration. No way, José. I’m convinced that time has somehow cheated me between then and today. I don't know who to complain to about it. Perhaps I should file a claim to my brain. I should if I could.Since the last time that I posted here, I was off work two weeks, was back for one, and was then off for another one week. I'm currently halfway being back for two, before I'll be off for another week beginning September 1st. Perhaps, just maybe, time has flown bye because much of that time, I have spent it with a drink in my hand or behind the wheel of an automobile. Both those issues, however, are exclusive to each other by the way. I know better.
In a nutshell this is what I've been up to since my last post.
I flew to Tucson. I then drove with The Crew to Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico the very next day. The Crew and I stayed there two days visiting two uncles and I was very fortunate to have spent time with my cousin Graciela María at my Uncle Louie's home. Coincidentally, she was visiting her parents all the way from Cancún, Yucatán. She teaches English at a university down there. She's like my older sister. She wonders when The Crew and I will visit. The thought of a visit got Wifey excited. Grace told The Savages that she knows of a beach, which only the locals go to, where dolphins come and socialize with people. The Savages were mesmerized. I felt screwed.
My other uncle, Rogelio, who happens to live there in Mexicali also, owns a beach house on the Baja coast on the Pacific side of the peninsula about 100 yards from the beach in a town called Rosarito. It's a beautiful place. After the second day came to pass, my uncle Roge insisted that I take the family there since all of my cousins and their families were there for the month of August.
So, we did as he suggested. We bid our farewells after two days, drove out there and had a great time. It was all hugs and kisses and many laughs with all my cousins and their Savages.
There were copious amounts of food and drink and a formidable surf intended for those who really know what they're doing out in it (me). We even set off some serious fireworks that we purchased at some surreal like shop on Rosarito's main street.Rosarito lasted about 24 hours before we headed up to San Diego so that The Savages can get acquainted with a cousin of mine who is a victim of Muscular Dystrophy. Rosela is 46 years old and I only remember her with that condition since I was a child. Rosela is my uncle Rogelio's daughter.
Surprisingly, she is doing well. She has had a full-time care-giver for the past 30 years and has had the same one, Irma, for the past 25. She has her own house and a vehicle that capacitates her to the rest of society. She was very gracious with me, Wifey and The Savages. It had been five years since I had seen her, but had been since the late summer of 1989 that Wifey had. She had lunch prepared for us. She even had a separate lunch put together for The Savages. I love her very much. Whenever she calls me at work, nothing else comes between her call and my attention. I hope that she's around for a long time. She’s the one that fills me in on all that family that I’m not around much anymore. Certainly, she’s a tie that binds me.
Our visit with Rosela in San Diego was about five hours long. We then headed off to Mission Beach for a few hours and then up to Anaheim. Up to The Savages' Holy Grail: Disneyland. Two and a half days there and The Savages were dragging their feet and hanging their tongues.
Wifey had a friend and her nine-year-old daughter, who used to live in our New Jersey town and who now live in San Diego, meet us there at Disneyland and also stay at the Hilton that we were at. We all had a great time. Wifey's friend Kate grew up in California wine country and she had the good fortune of trying some premium Baja, California bottles that we had purchased in Mexicali and brought along with us with the intention of enjoying them after the park excursion. The vino was excellent and perhaps even psychotropic.
We drank three bottles after all three Savages had surrendered that first night we were there. I felt the wine had a hallucinatory effect to it because both Kate and Wifey sat in one of the beds of our room cackling together like two high school girls who had never had a drink before. Me? I sat there and just stared at them and wondered while my mind and my thoughts had me going left, right, up and down on both of them. If I can ever get more of that wine, Monte Xanic Cabernet, I will jump at that chance.
Kate and her Savage left after we all had breakfast together at the hotel the next morning. After their departure, we went and enjoyed one more day in The Kingdom.
The day after that, we drove from Anaheim to Tucson in one fell shot. Wifey and I stopped in Tucson just long enough to regroup before we headed straight down to Nogales to attend a "carne asada" that my very long time friends Alex and Gracie were holding. We could not have not attended it. It was the only opportunity to see them and others who they had invited. We really wanted to see all these folks this time around out there.Think about it and look at a map to appreciate the trek: Anaheim to Tucson to Nogales and back
to Tucson in 18 hours. Oh yeah, throw in a drunken fiesta, a dust storm and a monsoon to that drive within that time frame. I knew that I had logged some serious miles on the PT Cruiser, but I did not realize exactly how many until I returned the car at Tucson International two weeks later. Two-thousand four-hundred and sixty-four miles. I felt like a long haul trucker.
All of the above that I've described happened in the first week I was on that initial two week break from work. I honestly felt like I had somehow become Clark Griswold that week.The second week? A pow-wow with my cousin Luis in Casa Grande. A trip to Phoenix just to have dinner. A drive up to Mount Lemmon’s Observatory and its 9100 foot peak (see above picture). Socializing with former professional associates and listening to their woes. A half-day trip with my brother-in-law and The Savages’ very gay uncle Mark (The Savages’ guardian if anything were to happen) out to Kitt Peak National Observatory. Eating out, especially Mexican food. I ate so much of it that I crapped out a gardener. Oh, and communion with CL many times among other things.
A strange thing happened when we were up at Kitt Peak. Because of the heavy recent rains, a landslide occured over the road leading there.
These are pictures of the landslide from a distance, up-close with work crews breaking up the boulders and of the rental waiting to get through after the collapse.
Another strange thing also happened when I was out with some friends one night that second week in Tucson. I was at this bar’s outside patio taking in the beautiful breezy summer night together with some internet acquaintances for a couple of hours when this commotion broke out on one side of this patio. Young women began shrieking and grown men were visibly skittish at something that appeared to be on the ground. I went to see what was going on only to realize that it was a tarantula! Yep. That was what the hub-bub was all about. I went and got a paper bag and gently guided it into it.
I brought it on the plane with me back to New Jersey two days later. Believe it or not, I actually got it past the TSA droid without a flinch from her in the side-mesh pocket of a back-pack that I brought on-board with me. I carried it in an 8 ounce "Glad Re-sealable" container with perforations to provide it fresh air. So, since I had found it at a bar named "Risky Business", and because it is a male, I've named it Tommy because of the Tom Cruise angle to it. Plus, "Tommy Tarantula" does seem to have a bit of a ring to it.
Tommy now has a comfy environment inside a five-gallon aquarium by the window in the room deemed to be the office in our home. I told some of the folks that I work with about that. They are now more convinced that I'm crazy, but in a much more exotic sense. Recently, I’ve been frequenting pet shops to buy crickets. Three per week at nine cents a piece. Hopefully soon, I’ll be able to find and buy a live "pinkie" to feed Tommy.
I was back to work on a Monday, seventeen days later, to work five easy tours before I was off for another week. A vacation week that got started in the most unusual and unexpected way.
With short notice and quick planning, we were visited in New Jersey by my cousin Bernadette, her husband Roger and their special needs (Down Syndrome) 12 year old son Andre. It's difficult to explain it, and it would take a chapter or two to describe but, Bernadette is my 10 year old Savage's godmother.
Bernadette’s grandmother and my grandmother were sisters. I grew up with Bernadette being like my older sister, just like the aforementioned cousin Grace. Bernadette is ten years older than I am. She was a flower girl at my parents' wedding. She's been living in Montreal the past year. She's lived in many places around the world. Her Roger works for a chemical company based in Houston, Texas. Currently, Montreal is their residence. Houston is always their home.
I had not seen her since October of '97. We had a very very good visit. As many places as they have ever lived in, and not counting brief stop-overs at JFK or Newark over the years, neither had ever visited New York. So, in the three days that they were around,
Wifey and I pulled out as many stops as possible. We conquered as much of New York City on Saturday and Sunday to a point that Roger's co-workers in Montreal, who are familiar with NYC, could not believe or understand how we did what we did in that amount of time.But the visit proved to be something more than just a visit from a very welcomed relative. At times, parts of the visit proved to be a confessional. A candid and disclosing one. One that provided revelations to Bernadette and Wifey. Bernadette was astounded at my keen sense of recollection of facts and dates. Wifey takes that trait of mine much in stride.
We talked about everything family late into the night on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights that she and her family were our guests. These discussions that would take place and develope in our kitchen, punctuated the end of our city excursions those three weekend days. She visiting was very cathartic for me. I realized a few things about myself and learned how I am perceived by other family members and how I was perceived by others who are no longer with us. I felt that I grew-up a little bit that weekend.....again. Wifey cried at times. Bernadette did some of that also. Roger, the accidental third wheel, looked on, listened and gleefully drank and ate carte blanche through the fridge, the rack and the downstairs stock in the cabinets.
On a couple of occasions during our tri-alogues, I had to excuse myself outdoors to catch my breath and to curse just to calm my rage about some things.
You may think that it all sounds like a Dr. Phil Show, but it was more like a Soprano extended family meeting. After many years, I had the good fortune to set the record straight on many personal family issues that had confused and befuddled extended family members.
Once both my parents had passed, my relationship with my brothers took on a very hostile and caustically adversarial timbre. Today, it is almost impossible to contact any one of them without any one of them start with the obscenities at me and sometimes at Wifey. One is a systems engineer for Intel in Phoenix. Another is an anesthesiologist at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas. The other is a college drop-out but a successful restaurant owner in Tucson.
From the outside, one would assume them to be well adjusted. All three, however, are embittered, dysfunctional, fearful and ashamed about issues that they were not able to cope with or refused to do so in their lives.
Bernadette legitimized many -- if not all -- of my positions regarding all this laundry. Over the years, other cousins, aunts and uncles, and longtime family friends have tacitly expressed unsolicited reservations about the way my brothers have acted over the years. The record speaks for itself. For years, I was the one my brothers and other family members turned to for guidance and leadership. Today, the ones who should have been the closest are the furthest. They cower away with that cloak of theirs. All three, and their dysfunctional wives, are too ashamed to face any aunts, uncles, cousins and close family friends. All three have chosen to abandon all of their extended family in order to cope with their insecurities.
Me? I have chosen to ignore three caustic pricks and embrace The Clan. The collective is right and it is good. The pricks know it and they resent me because of it. They've proved that over the years to me and to many others. Dr. Freud where are you?
Enough.
Later that week, on that second respite, The Crew and I went down to Colonial Williamsburg for the weekend and stayed with The MD. The MD currently lives on a naval base named Camp Peary. He lives in a beautiful home that has been assigned to him by good ol' Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam is currently taking good care of him rent free. I mentioned a few months ago about how The MD is one of the smartest persons that I know. I remain fixed on that perception after that weekend.
The MD and his wife were gracious hosts to The Crew and me. We all had a great time visiting and getting to know the area. I had never spent any time in any military base until then. I was totally intrigued the entire weekend and with his living arrangement.
I also saw one of the biggest trees I've ever seen in my life. Today, I wonder what Uncle Sam may have extrapolated after they ran a security check on Wifey and me to be his guests that weekend. I guess that no flags came up. There have been no Crown Vics parked near our home with dark suited men wearing Ray-Bans in them. Also, our garbage has not been stolen.That's a good thing.
Anyway, this summer furlough of mine has been reinvigorating, but it has also been exhausting for me. Even though I couldn't squeeze two days at Hershey Park with The Crew and another Stepford mom last week, I feel pretty good about this summer of mine. I feel that The Crew have had a summer to remember even though it is not technically over for them.
Maybe someday I will have that perfect vacation. Like a Dudley Moore in Manzanillo one. The one where I spend an entire week in nothing but an ultra-fluffy bathrobe with a hat and sunglasses, snoozing on a chaise lounge under a large umbrella on the beach. A cooler on one side and an ashtray on the other. Soft sounds off of a small radio and of the surf. A laptop, an array of dailies and a good book. No phone. The occasional hotel beach attendant passing bye to ask if I need anything.
I know it's what some people believe to be a good vacation. I've seen those Corona TV ads the last few years. The creator of those ads knows. The creator knows what I want. I wonder if he's anything like me.
I wonder if the inspiration for that ad campaign came from spending a summer much the same way I've spent mine.
Am I the only one?
http://www.superclubs.com/brand_hedonism/resort_hedonismii/
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posted by JerryNJ @ 11:06 AM
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