Ommmmm- Calmness

Davey is in Florida remodeling his parent’s bathroom.  Last report, the electrical, the plumbing and the framing are complete.  This weekend, he starts to put up the sheet rock.  He is enjoying the nice weather and pool time with his niece. 

The past week and half has been really calming.  It’s like I just realized how crazy the past couple months have been.   I’ve had great family time, some good runs and a couple nice yoga sessions.    All the while, I’m still teaching my online classes.

There are not really many people that you can invade their house for a month and they ask if you can stay longer.  I’m lucky.  I’m staying with that couple.   Walter is a charismatic, cynical handy-man ( a strangely endearing combination).   Ruthie is the kindest, compulsive whirlwind you will ever meet. She leaves a trail of warm feelings, chocolate chip coffee cake and post it notes. 

Walter has every tool you can imagine in his garage workshop.  We pulled out the forge to play with some metal.  I love the smell of hot metal.  There are a couple different types of forges.  This one burns coal.  It’s like a frying pan with holes in the bottom.  Underneath it, a fan blows that makes the fire burn hotter.    You put your metal in the frying pan buried in the coal.  When the metal turns white hot, you pull it out and bang the hell out of it for about 30 seconds.  Then, you stick it back in the fire until it turns white hot again and repeat the process.  So I practiced with a nice iron rod.  (Side note: There could be a lot of innuendo in this description.)  We twisted, flattened and curled it.  Honestly, it looked pretty pathetic.  I’m not a natural.  But after that, we made two dinner triangles (bells).  Simple, but it provided a little sense of accomplishment and they actually turned out pretty cool.

Today, I took the Peter Pan Bus from Wilmington, DE to New York.  Don’t ask me why they call it the Peter Pan Bus; it’s just a version of a Greyhound bus.  I’m visiting my friend Deanna that used to live in Kansas City.  It’s Friday afternoon and I’m waiting in the Club Applebee’s bar for her to get off work.    I kid you not- the bartenders and waitresses are wearing black half shirts and bras and they are singing along to the loudest R &B playing in the bar.  One of the girls had the best pushup bra I had ever seen.  The bra and the effect were quite nice.   Better go - I’m ordering a Bacardi and diet coke and doing a little “popping” here in a minute…

Laudy Miss Clawdy

Second Stop-Memphis.

I’ve never been to Memphis and believe me a day and half was not enough.

Maybe I’m a geography idiot but I never realized the city basically sits on 3 states, TN, AR and MS.  We stayed in Horn Lake, MS.  That is five minutes from Graceland and 15 minutes from Beale Street.

The first item on the agenda was Graceland.  I can’t say Dave was jumping for joy that this was at the top of my list, especially when I mentioned it was $31/person with a coupon and $10 for parking.  Considering I was never an Elvis fan, I’m a little surprised I was so excited to see it.  I missed out on the Elvis phenomenon.  I was seven when Elvis died and at that point in my life the only music that was played in our house was John Denver and Barry Manilow.  No, I’m not kidding.

When my friend Joe went to visit the final resting spot of the king, he wore a white jumpsuit and sideburns.  He reminded me to take a box of Jelly Donuts to lay at the memorial.

Let me just tell you… It was worth every penny of the $72.  Dave even liked it.  The Mansion was smaller than we expected in a seedy part of town.  Ie pawn shops, bail bondsmen and lots of fast food spots.  But otherwise, it was totally cool.  One of my fav parts was the Bohemian room in the basement that also housed the pool table.  The walls and ceiling were covered with a multi-colored print fabric that had millions of gathers- a little like a circus tent.  The Lisa Marie plane was also a fav.  The plane had 2 bathrooms in Elvis’ favorite shade of blue, two sitting rooms, a conference room and a bedroom.  The whole interior was covered with blue suede and velvet.  There was a seat belt across the bed which was FAA regulation.

The house was 70’s style as would be expected, but not as gaudy as I was expecting.   Other highlights were the jungle room that lived up to its reputation and the auto museum was worth it…some super sweet rides.  That reminds me…  I had an awesome S’more waffle cone.

There was also some side “museums”  that were really just gift shops in disguise.  I shouldn’t even say disguise, it was pretty blatant.  But overall Graceland was two thumbs up and I have a new appreciation for the king of Rock and Roll.   I’ve been humming some crazy song called Laudy Miss Clawdy that he played in the 68 Special.  If you get bored check it out.

Next, was Beale Street.  Beale Street is much like Bourbon Street.  The street was blocked off and bands played on the sidewalks and in the bars.  But unfortunately, it was Monday night and it was a little dead.  But we stopped at a little Cajun joint and had some Jambalaya and Gumbo and then listened to some great jazz from a street band.   

I’ll add Memphis to my list to revisit.

Next stop- I go to Delaware and Dave heads to Florida.

Am I in Kansas Anymore?

Stop One-Anthony, Kansas

The first stop on the gypsy tour was Anthony, Kansas. 

It’s was a pretty drive.  The Flint Hills were turning yellowish rust and the sunflowers are everywhere.  If you are not from Kansas you may be picturing the “typical” huge sunflower.  Actually, wild sunflowers are more like yellow daisies that are caffeinated because they stick straight out from their stem.  But the flowers always face the sun.

The other thing non-Kansasans don’t know…  That people from Kansas do know that they are not in Kansas anymore. 

Anthony is about 2000 people and home of my 86 year old Grandpa- Bob.  My Grandpa is a storyteller.  This visit, he tells me he has had a good life and the good Lord has taken care of him.  He survived 2 plane crashes during WWII.

Bob was a bombardier during the war.  He was in the” bubble”. It was a key spot on the crew.  One for the obvious reason of shooting the enemy, two because you had good visibility to what was going on around the plane.  The bubble was tight quarters.    He said he would have a Charlie Horse in every muscle in his body when he climbed out of the bubble.

There were 9 guys on the crew.  They were flying in the Berlin area when they were hit by Flak or Anti- aircraft artillery which is shot from the ground.  They went down in a field 30 miles south of Berlin.  As they came down, two French women and a French man ran across the field to meet them .  The threesome hustled the crew to an abandon barn.  For two weeks, they traveled at night hiding in bombed out buildings. Eventually, they got to the British border.    

Side Note:  My Grandpa is a player.  He really likes the ladies.  So he also throws in that he was accused of “keeping warm” between the two French ladies.  I not sure if I buy this. The logistics of 10 men and 2 women sleeping in bombed out buildings seems a little sketchy.  But hey- if you thought you might get caught at any moment by the Germans and tortured… Get it while the getting is good.

Six missions later, the plane went down because they were out of gas.  They went down near an abandoned airfield.  There were cans of gas on the field.  They formed a line and passed the cans from man to man getting enough gas into the tank.  After taking off, there was a hammering on the side of the plane.  The captain yelled back at Bob to check if the hammering was a loose strap.  Hell no-Bob yelled down those boys are shooting us.  They “high-tailed” it out of there before anything critical was shot.

Moral of the story :  Get tail or high tail.

Next stop Memphis- Final resting place of the king!

Getting Ready… Holy Tuna Batman…This is harder than you think.

A couple of my friends have asked me to keep them posted on our travels.  Well just in case they were saying that just to be nice, I’m posting a blog instead of sending spam.

So here is my first blog.

Let me just tell you packing a storage area, a pickup and a BMW for the long term is harder than you think.  Every single item in our house was sorted into 3 buckets: Storage, Goodwill or in the car.

Some decisions were easy.  Did I really need 20 copies of the Dec 1987 issue of my high school newspaper?  I was editor and all, but really.  One copy is enough, unless I plan on selling them at our 25 year reunion. They were 25 cents in high school, probably not worth keeping.

Other decisions were not so easy. If you are a chick or a gay man, imagine narrowing your whole wardrobe down to fit in a 3 series BMW trunk.   I have had trips to Hy-Vee that more than fill that trunk.  Some of my favorite sweaters got voted out of the BMW to the purgatory that is the Extra Storage garage.

I did a couple trial runs.  There are 30 hangers of clothes, 21 pairs of shoes, a file box, a bottle of Baileys and an extra large bottle of gin that fit in that trunk.    In the back seat, there is a large and small suitcase, a yoga mat, 3 storage totes, a lap top and a printer.  In the front seat, there is a toiletry bag and a mini cooler.

Now granted, Dave has the pickup and the trailer.  So he has our bikes, golf clubs and a whole crap load of tools.  So for him, my clothes dilemma is his tool dilemma.  He has no qualms about the decision to wear only 10 shirts, 4 pairs of shoes, a bathing suit, shorts and a couple pairs of jeans for the foreseeable future.  But ask him which saw got voted out of the trailer.  I think I may have seen a hack saw in the Extra Storage purgatory, otherwise the other 21 saws are making a roadtrip.

The other thing is groceries.  I have a problem throwing away food.  It may have been in my pantry for 5 years, but I have waited until the day before we close on the house to toss it.  Ashley ended up with some Kashi, a ton of spices, the most monstrous jar of pickles, kidney beans, cherry pie filling and miscellaneous crap.  Just what she was hoping for…

Our closing is tomorrow Sept 28^th, but we turn over possession noon on Sept 30.  First stop-Anthony, Kansas.