No fool like a (really cute) old fool (with rockin' gazongas)

The main problem in living this far out of the way is that your choices are real limited when it comes to health care. Now, living in America means thats going to be a problem anyway, but I also live in a tiny American town that had to advertise internationally to persuade two doctors to come practice here.
Naturally, we didn't end up with anyone who had to turn down offers to teach neurosurgery.

Whenever I've had to choose a new doctor I try and go for the youngest woman on staff. If it comes down to one of those 'feet in the stirrups' type procedures I'd rather have someone who knows their way around the territory doing the exam, for one thing. For another, the younger person knows the newest procedures. Right?

Well, this time I didn't get much of a choice.

I have a couple of chronic conditions that make it necessary to visit the doctors fairly often. A 30-some-odd mile round trip to Bellingham is out of the question in midwinter. A 17 mile round trip to Lynden is just ridiculous. Why? Seems all the practitioners in Lynden are stonewall Christians who belong to these profit driven, drug company-sponsored 'treatment management' programs. On the one hand you get to listen to Dr. Apostles' witness while he does your PAP smear, and on the other you end up getting convinced you need all the expensive drugs and treatments that 'Big Drug Corporation, Ltd.' is pushing. That is a WHOLE 'NOTHER POST. Suffice it to say, that WON'T do.

When we got news of the new practitioners' opening shop here in town there was much rejoicing. Rejoicing tempered with the realization that we were going to be dealing with some 'C' students, mind; this is American medicine after all. But at least it's a foot in the door and close, right?

Well...
Doctor #1 is an elderly gynaecologist who decided, once he'd moved here, that he wanted to be a General Practitioner. Just because. Try something new; what the hey. Never trained for it. Not qualified. The guy spent the last 30 years talking to tuna; suddenly he's magically able to diagnose throat cancer and cataracts and Alzheimers? Sure! Why the fuck not?
This is the same guy who basically tried to kill my Yummy Biker by prescribing him a combination of drugs that even I know is LETHAL.

Prior to that I had to go in and have a talk with ol' Doc Tuna about how reading your patients' goddamn charts beforehand is a good idea? Since-and I could be wrong here; after all I didn't go to medical school like he did (back in the Pleistocene) -a patient with a previously diagnosed sleeping disorder should probably NOT be given medication proven to increase the likelihood of OPERATING MACHINERY, EATING AND DRIVING IN ONES' SLEEP.

The other doctor is a youngish guy....hardcore Christian but not obnoxious about it. He operates independently of the 'treatment management' Mafia, and so I figured why not give him a chance?

The upside of this is that he's a good guy.

The downside of this is that he's a typically overworked American GP who has compounded that whole issue by having six kids AND being a member of Doctors Without Borders.

Kids are good, and I believe in this program, and I admire the guy for being part of it.

What I don't like is the fact that he has a standardized packages of speeches he delivers on any given medical issue, nearly word for word each time. The man isn't seeing individuals; he's seeing conditions.
The guy is right on the verge of burnout.

This past winter was possibly the worst winter for me, health-wise, on record. I spend more time sick than I did well, and I had a nearly constant respiratory infection going. I went through over-the-counter rescue inhalers by the metric shitload. I needed to go out and be active. It's vital that I do so, now that I have diabetes. And I wanted to get out and be active too...but every goddamn time I did the infection came back, or I caught another cold, or got bronchitis, or ran onto a fungal bloom someplace or a cat or some feathers and had a huge allergic reaction. My system was under constant, constant attack and the asthma was just RAGING.

But oh yes, I did go to see my doctor. Three times.

Each time I received the same standardized speech about 'viral infections are untreatable with antibiotics and I should wait and let it run its course and then come in only if it persists'. ('Persist' being the infinitely definable operative term here.)

Now, were I a younger person I would have bought this unquestioningly. As an older person with a medical phobia, I let myself trust that his experience would be recent and that maybe he knew something that I hadn't heard. All the while, what I should have been doing is trusting MYSELF.

I've had this shit since 1966. I KNOW the goddamn difference between a viral infection and the usual crap I get. I have allergic rhinitis, sinusitis, polyps and asthma. I know that the standard cortisone-based treatments for the asthma actually makes the other stuff worse in the long run because steroids suppress the immune system. I KNOW that the only recourse, in my case, given my etiology, is to take the goddamn antibiotics and heal up and then work like hell and get strong. Now that I'm diabetic this only goes double, since inhaled corticosteroids make diabetes WORSE.

So next week I get to go in and tell Mr. 'I Donate My Skills Worldwide for the Greater Glory of Christ' that he's full of shit.

Basically I fucked away an entire winter believing someone else and letting my fear of doctors give me an excuse to listen to the WRONG ADVICE. That's time I will never get back. I screwed the pooch bigtime and I've got nobody to blame, ultimately, but ME.

And then I get to go find a new doctor!!!

YAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!

More quaint freakin' vignettes from my rural idyll, which is still charming.

VINDICATED!!!!

In the past, I have met with a certain amount of opposition when trying to explain why I express myself so colorfully...
To recap:

1. Why do you have such a dang ol potty mouth, Nations you wacky broad you?
Because I'm from Oregon. I fuckin' grew up talking like that. Can't think of a noun? 'Shit' will do nicely as a replacement! As in 'My shit is so fuckin' tired of grownup people complaining about my language."

2. Well, I grew up in Oregon and I have no idea what you're talking about. We never talked that way.
Oh please go fuck yourself. Don't try and be all 'real estate' on me, Portland, you swear like a cat and you twang like a banjo. Makes no difference where you grew up. Milwaukie? Hell yeah. Healy Heights? You too! And Heaven save us from you nasty St. Mary of the Valley private school hoochies; y'all are just VILE.
Well done!

The reason for all this celebration is that there is now DOCUMENTARY PROOF FOR ALL TIME that I'm not making excuses....and it's in the form of a Discovery Channel reality series called 'Axe Men'. It's about loggers. It's filmed up around Vernonia (oh go look it up on google/earth; I ain't your dirty map bitch) and lemme tell you, the 'motherfuckers' be flying thick up in them thar woods. Those boys are flat freestyling.
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Remember that trip back to Oregon I just took? Yeah, you'll be hearing a lot more about it too. Anyway, once we'd crossed the state line and were in Oregon, we stopped in Clatskanie (no, now I told you I ain't your goddamn google/earth bitch! go look it up yourownself!) to top up the tank and stretch our legs. Inside the mini mart I walked past a couple of ordinary lumber-type guys, covered in sawdust, waiting in line to buy something out of the hot case.

One says' You talk to him recently?'
The other says 'I aint seen that motherfucker in months.'

And I knew I was back home.

In Washington it would have been "Have you talked to him recently?
The other would say "Iyant seen him in months."

Now I'm going to get a bunch of comments saying "Well, I live in Washington and nobody talks that way. 'Iyant'? What's 'Iyant'? No 'Iyants' here; too many doubleshot lattes have addled your speech centers, grasshopper."

To which I reply "Maaaaaaaan, fuck all y'all. AND the horse you rode in on." Because I'm right, and now I'm moving on to another subject.

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Yesterday was my first official day out in the garden overdoing things. Yay! I got the front yard mowed and trimmed, and mowed as much of the back yard as I could without pissing off the ducks or having to don scuba gear. I got my vegetables started a whole month late, took the asparagus hay to the compost area (now nicely rotted down!!!) and eyed the shrubbery critically.

This has become something of an obsession with me now that I have a professional arborist in the family. He carries his clippers (Felco, bypass) in a leather holster for heavens sake. He can prune a tree and talk at the same time, snap snap snap, oh yes, acers have some trouble with botrytis, clip, snap, clip. It's intimidating. I guess probably moreso if you're an acer, though.

Now that I'm back home I'm looking at my poor weeping alder and cringing in shame. Sure, once it leafs out it looks fine, but geeze the awkward cuts. The red osier by the bedroom window is not exactly a triumph of the art either. Because of it's location I've had to damn near pleach it; and really keep after it so it doesn't scrape against the house and freak my shit out in the middle of the night thinking that zombies are trying to claw through the siding. Still, every time I knock it back it does something else objectionable. Just to be difficult. I know it.

Do not even look at my staghorn willow; just do NOT. It is SAD. It is CRYING.
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My Magnolia Stellata should bloom forth TODAY. Yesterday I was looking at it while I was sweeping the sidewalk and I thought 'Oh yeah. Give it another couple of hours of sunlight and those buds will open right out." And sure enough:

...I was dead wrong. There you go.

This is such an excellent plant...it can stand up to the Northeaster, and it has a nice structure too. The blossoms are white as swans feathers! Big enough to call attention to themselves; gracefully made yet unusual. It's really obliging; you can train it to any shape you like. The blossoms last for a long time and the wind doesn't tear them off. When they do fall they turn very small and brown; they don't lie there in a big soggy heap, looking all weird like spoiled salad, like the petals of a tulip magnolia do. In the summer it shows a nice leaf and provides lots of gentle shade, and in the fall the leaves turn a magnificent hot yellow. For me this is a 4 seasons plant.

It's taking the place of what I'd originally wanted; some cornus florida (pink flowering dogwood.) Sadly, that goes tits up here as soon as the first Northeaster blows. Although it is weirdly site-specific-it will live and grow happily on the protected south side of a structure, even up in Abbostford. But one hard blast of dry cold does the whole thing in. So if you were to tear down the house or the wall thats protecting it, no matter how mature the tree is; it's days are numbered. Yes, even the hybrids. I know. It's sad.

We have a cornus kousa over the Spud. It came through the winter without even noticing. (Good thing, or I'da had to beat down some Dutch ass.) It had to be hardy; it's sited right in the path of a venturi effect; where the Northeaster comes cracking through and ramps off the corner of my house, which makes the wind gust even faster and adds some turbulence. This same nearly beat my poor armandii clematis to death, but the kousa never even lost a twig.

Come to think of it, I have a fair working knowledge of what works in a cold, windy site. Here's a map of mine:


...and that does not make me your map bitch; it just means I'm helpful. Sometimes.

REVEALED!!! The secret of Freemasonry is....

Masonic meatballs!
...and because I realize that not everyone is fortunate enough to live in a country that has normal measurements which make sense, here's your conversion site* down in the footie notes.
This one is worth it, kids.

meatball recipe:
1/2 cup cornstarch mixed with 1/2 cup of plain white flour for dusting, set aside in a bowl. Save what you don't use for dusting, you'll need it for the gravy!

2 lbs ground pork, 2 lbs ground beef. (beef can be extra lean; the pork will make up the fat.)
1 cup dry white bread crumbs
1 egg
1/3 to 1/2 cup mayonnaise
nutmeg 1/2 tsp
allspice 1/2 tsp
3 tbls minced shallot
1/2 cup (after cutting) fresh minced parsley

mix this together very very well, and let chill, covered, overnight in fridge.

The next day, form into ping pong-sized balls.
dust with flour, roll between hands while shaking off excess
and then bake on a lightly oiled sheet pan for 20 minutes at 400f.

Once they come out of the oven, let them sit for 20 minutes or so, then dump them into a baking dish large enough to hold them 1 layer deep. You can use two dishes if you have to; it doesn't matter.


Gravy recipe:

4 cups beef stock
1/2 cup lager beer

1 cup milk +the mixture you used to dust the meatballs, whatever there is left of it, to make a slurry with the milk.

1/3 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup white breadcrumbs, toasted brown VERY IMPORTANT
1/4 cup minced shallot
1/2 cup fresh minced parsley
(optional-a few shakes of ranch dressing sprinkles)
(optional-salt up using powdered chicken bouillon instead of plain salt)
1/3 tsp. white pepper
1/3 tsp. nutmeg
dill spice-be careful

Dump it all in a pot on the cold stovetop and bring it up to 'high' while you stir. Not like a windmill in a high gale, just enough to keep it mixed and off the bottom of the pot.

A word of caution: when you first mix this sauce up it will have a really strange, sourish backbite to it, and you'll think 'Nations, you're nuts.' I am, but not when it comes to this sauce. It tones way down and finishes by being let to cook in for a long time in the oven with the meatballs.

When the sauce kicks, take off the fire and dump it over the meatballs, and make sure you coat each one. (If it seems like its on the watery side, stir in another half-cup of breadcrumbs before you dump it over the meatballs. Better to err on the side of too thick now; you can thin it down with milk or bouillion later before you serve it.)

DO NOT COVER.

Replace the meatballs with the gravy in the oven, and turn the heat down to 275. Yes, 275f.

Hold it there for at least 3 hours.

Yes, really.

If you were to bake this like a standard casserole (at 375 or 400 for 30 minutes) it would turn out tasting completely weird. And don't even think about trying it in a crockpot. No, baking it long and low like this makes everything kind of get all brown and cooked in and good. It's absolutely necessary to developing the flavor. I don't know why this works but it does.

As it bakes it will get cracked and brown on top and look kind of ugly. Check it a couple times to see that it doesn't get too dried out, though; float a little milk on top if it looks like its getting too shallow. I had to about 45 minutes before I took it out.

Before you serve it, mix it all around gently. It will then turn a nice yellowy-gold color.

Now serve it with riced potatoes. Noodles would be great too!

to recap:
mix up meatballs, chill overnight
make meatballs
bake meatballs
make sauce
dump over meatballs
put in slow oven
catch a Mythbusters marathon, crack a few beers, nap
stir
eat

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*
http://www.wwrecipes.com/convert.htm

quaint vignettes from my charming rural idyll

I have just been informed by my daughter, the Stainless Steel Amazon, that I am too old to both flip people off and climb fences. This rather took me aback. Things like 'age' and 'propriety' don't apply to me; I am the magic exception to the rule. I mean, come on; I'll probably flip off the coroner when he starts the 'Y' incision. That's ingrained behavior for heavens' sake.
I promise, though, that if I break a hip, THEN I'll stop climbing fences. That's the best I can do.
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This whole subject of getting old was brought painfully home during my visit to Oregon. As I sat and looked at all these glorious young people and listened to the things they were talking about, I suddenly realized that my shit is undeniably middle aged. I went to the bathroom, closed the door, turned on all the lights and took a close look at myself in the mirror.
Yup.
Whats more, I saw myself automatically doing that 'catching yourself ' thing? Where you raise the chin slightly and lift the eyebrows? The ol' 'instant face lift' move you used to bust your mom doing whenever she passed a store window? That one.
Simply excellent. I am now officially someone my age. No matter what I do or how I look, I will forever after always be "__________" (fill in the blank: weird, OK, kinda pretty, etc.) FOR SOMEONE MY AGE.
This is me in my Jimi Hendrix t-shirt sitting on top of a fence flipping y'all off.

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I was making some 'Swedish' meatballs (I totally doubt that the Swedes invented this. It was probably the Freemasons) and the recipe called for 'dill'. Fine; I hucked in some dill, the amount called for.

Holy hot damn did that stuff BLOOM. The whole sauce is like Planet Dill. I can still taste it an hour later, and that's just after taking a tiny nibble off the end of the spoon! I was not aware that dill would attack a person like this. Does it get stronger as it ages or something? Or am I just sensitive to the flavor?
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Yesterday we had 2 inches of snow. Then we had rain. This morning we had frost, ice fog, and now the sun is shining. Everyone is saying 'AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA GLOBAL WARMING WE'RE ALL GONNA DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE'
...meanwhile, this is pretty much what I remember happening every spring and ever fall in this part of the world for the past 47 years. Am I the only person who remembers the weather from one year to the next? My grandmother even did this and heaven knows she saw her share of climate phenomena in 89 years-still, every time it did something unexpected outside, something unnatural was to blame.

Her generation blamed 'Russian weather satellites.' Oh yes. Sputnik. You bet. It flew around the earth taking spy pictures, but when it got over the United States the Russians could make it shoot out a ray that messed up the weather. She absolutely believed this; in fact, a lot of people her age did, although I have no idea where they got the notion.

We would stand outside and watch the satellites going overhead (They'd announce it on the news; 'At 7pm this evening look north and you will see Telstar pass over!') She'd tell us kids 'Wave to Russia! Kruschev's taking your picture!"
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Grandma also had some strange notions regarding the end of the world. She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she would live to see Jesus come again in glory. She would slip this into casual conversation; it wasn't an expression, it was a part of her long-range planning. "I don't know why I bother canning anymore," she'd say, wiping her forehead with her apron ,"Jesus will be here before we even start on these peaches from last year. We need to hurry and eat them before they go to waste. You wont need to eat anything after, you know."

Every time they'd burn off the rye fields the smoke in the atmosphere would cross the moonlight, turning it an eerie purpley-red color. Every year, my grandmother would start telling everyone to get right because this was the beginning of the end. Why? Because the Bible says in Revelations that the moon will turn red right before the end of the world.

The Bible also said that "he will arrive like a thief in the night", which she was certain meant that the end would come at night. Well, makes sense, right? Red moon? The moon comes up at night? And that was that as far as she was concerned.
As far as I was concerned my shit was absolutely freaked out by this whole red moon situation, every year. It scared me to think that some night I'd go to sleep and wake up dead someplace in my pyjamas (probably someplace hot, according to the nuns who taught me that humanity sucks and is uniformly unworthy of salvation and each one of us little six-year-olds were responsible for hammering the nails into Jesus' poor feet etc etc.)

My grandmother knew nothing whatsoever about that crap, though; she was Seventh Day. Her motivation was not to scare anyone; she was simply doing her neighbors a favor, like letting people know that there was supposed to be a big windstorm on its way so put the car in the garage.

For a couple of nights she'd stay up long into the dark, to peek up at the moon as it travelled across the sky, sitting in her rocker by the screen door, reading her bible with a magnifying glass in the lamplight. Every now and then she'd shake some salt onto the screen and knock down the nosy slugs that would climb up and peek in at her. In the middle of the night I could look out the bathroom window and I could see her sitting there, just her and the salty gastropods, waiting calmly for Jesus to stop by, keeping a light on so he wouldn't trip on the steps.

Scarlet Ibis: The Hundred Flowers Blooming Ploy!

1. AND SO IT CAME TO PASS that the Stainless Steel Amazon, the Goonybird and FirstNations packed up their smalls and set forth upon the avenues which lead South in those days.

2. After many adventures (primarily at gas stations where they have an attendant that fills the tank for you because its illegal to pump your own damn gasoline in Oregon) we arrived at my sons' house where we were met by a flourish of trumpets! A golden palanquin carried by four ripply fellows burnished to a high shine conveyed us in regal state from our car to the front door! Except not really!

3. Once within the charming inner precincts we found ourselves surrounded by luxury...long-staple cottons, candlelight, a rockin' sectional that I let the baby urp up on...vast machines covered in pushybuttons given wholly unto the washing and drying of garments, hand-laid solid oaken floors bright with Varathane which smiled upon our feet and bade us rest.

4. As we reclined, fanned by comely, doe-eyed boys having just reached the first bloom of early manhood, we

*ahem*

%. The final traces of our travel-weariness was banished then as rare delicacies were pressed upon us with the tenderest entreaty...burritos of the utmost perfection, shy and trembling, newly born; burritos which were both excellent and snacksome to the face.

6. Exhausted, we then laid our heads to rest. The rest of us we also did rest in those days.

G. Upon the rising of the sun we then breakfasted us with coffee darker than the heart of a lifelong Republican, waffles topped with strawberries, whipping cream that I singlehandedly demolished in four days' time like a vast whipping cream-devouring space-time anomaly, succulent bacon upon which all Suidae smiled benevolently and bade us refresh ourselves like that animal in the Restaurant at the End of the Universe but not icky plus the bacon didn't talk.. and there was much rejoicing!

8. So it was that The First-Born, favored of Sucellos, together with She The Magnificent, Beauteous, Beneficent and Unruffled his consort who should really have the good taste to be a little less slim and good looking after three kids I mean COME ON, showered us with abundance....brilliant conversation, pictures zoetropically arranged so as to give the illusion of movement, cunningly home brewed beverages flavored like citrus and autumn...guitar music, cilantro, garlic and wine. Our miniature yet perfectly formed descendants played about our feet and only occasionally regurgitated. Even the dogs strode godlike through the halls, clothed in nature, shod with glory, inasmuch as dogs can be described as shod, which is to say, not at all.

9. For my delight the same Firstborn must surely have bidden Persephone rise up; leave her Stygian, if not aphotic, throne and dance newly clad in forsythia, cherry and asphodel, solely for my amusement on that very morning. It was both surreal and Disneyesque, and it still makes my heart pause.

10. Well breakfasted, I then bade my son take command of the trusty Heefalump Dumpaloon Mach III! Yes, the road was our horse and we used the spurs! Rather the car was like a horse if a horse ran on gasoline, and we drove on the road, and there were no spurs, although there are a lot of cowboys in Oregon, and some of them are gay and some are straight! Yet we saw them not in those days.

11. We halted in our progress to view those precincts over which my son had been made lord and charged with bidding those who toil and that which grew to attend each its separate task and mind it well. While he drug a smaller piece of heavy equipment out of the mire with a much larger piece of heavy equipment, (same rearing back in internally combusting exuberance and causing me to look away and think determinedly happy thoughts for a few moments) I surveyed the bounty of this garden and found its verdure good; both rad and awesome, as are random italics.

12. As is my wont then, I cast a critical eye over the plants which grew in that place, particularly those that were stressed...those plants growing at the end of rows next to the road where the sprayers turn and the tractors tract? FOR IT IS SAID: By the weakest of them shall ye truly know the temper of them all: and they was wickedbad. Awesome. Top of the line. Except for the ones that got run over.

13. Tenacious grasses grasped the earth for roadways between the plots in that place; cover crops covered where crops had been and would be again, those same fully grown or newly sprung, noiselessly, in that place. In the distance a lone peacock sang: YALP.

14. Mommy was PLEASED.

15. I will speak now of a wonder! Draw near: There were mated pairs of redtail hawks flourishing in the streamside brush which ran between and beside his gardens.

16. In a commercial nursery.

17. That's MIRACULOUS.

18. That ain't the way Oregon used to be, kids. It used to be a pesticide-drenched silent nightmare. Birds of prey were rare. You never, never saw them anyplace near human habitation; you had to be quite far out into the backwoods, and even there they were scarce; because those that were not poisoned were routinely shot.

19. But in my sons' gardens? Eagles soaring overhead. (Beavers and Cesnas too.) Redtails in nesting pairs. AND FALCONIDS-! The entire species was essentially WIPED OUT in Oregon by the 70's! (Go check it out. And read the whole article.)
This then also as well too been was the playground of the sparrow and the parkland of the jay, o'er which the robin flew and the chicken picked while the feral pheasant phezzed. Small bright falcons perched upon the high-tension lines like Egyptian amulets, while their larger cousins darted low and then swept on high while the swallow dipped and dodged. The plaintive "gronk" of the lovelorn heron, the voice of the Redwing, the call of the flying rat pigeon were heard throughout the land. Anderi, columbi, falconi, galli, grui, passeri: all these I saw been representin'.

19. And were this not miracle enow, one could hear frogs singing in the creeks which ran past.

FROGS.

20. One of the most environmentally reactive, vulnerable creatures in nature, the one which environmental scientists use as an indicator species re the pollution in any given place. And here they were bouncing around in the sunshine in the middle of my son's in-ground operation.

You want your 'stewards of the earth'?
MY SON, bitches.

21. I asked him then: "Dude, you up for a road trip?"
"Sure," he replied. "I got nothin goin. Where ya wanna go?" ( our conversation recounted here in the charming patois of the natives.)

V. And it followed then that we set forth to visit my deceased Grandmother, but were defeated in this objective by the malign Clackamas County Public Lands department who had locked the gate to the cemetery (and had erected a fence around same, which yet failed to include nearly one fourth of the inhabitants thereof!) Therefore we were not able to visit this monument, yet also was my firstborn spared the excruciating, inevitable ordeal of witnessing his mother reduced to a blubbering, hiccuping, snot-leaking tard for the next several hours. And I was well pleased then, and lifted thanks unto Clackamas County in my heart.

W. From thence we turned and bravely ventured forth for to survey my former haunts and visit with trepidation the memories those environs evoked evocatively. Even unto the very Gate of Hades itself did we dare! Only to find that place become a haven of strangers.
AND THERE WAS MUCH REJOICING!

24. Although I missed the huge Butternut tree that used to stand by our garage; it was beautiful.

25. The modest pioneer-built home of my Grandmother stood near. It's weathered timber now sheltered Alternative Folk, guarded 'round about with Gnomes, Cement Deer, Random Outbuildings and Eccentric Fencing. A grim Deaths-Head surmounted by lightning now adorned the garage door, warding away the miscreant and the malefactor and the stealer of Gnomes, while maintaining Death's own silence even unto the present day regarding the Civil War Deserter who once hid in its gasoline-perfumed gloom.

26. My son then drove me in a northerly direction south, south of the Willamette and North of the Suburban wastes, to an inn he was wont to frequent. Much to our mutual astonishment this same turned out to be the very site of mine own youthful, semi-clad adventures; escapades which had become legends that the very building-stones remembered, whispering in measures measured 'midst the humid Willamette nights nocturnally.

27. "Aw fuck!" I cried aloud, my heart thrilling "You cannot believe how many times Mom was baked off her tits on this very spot!"

28. Such was my happiness that I bade the innkeeper be lavish with the food and drink, thus rendering my only male descendant slightly pissed (yeah, you totally were) ere the noontide. "You know what?" he said, blushing a charming red as he spoke "I've never asked a girl out? Not once. Never had to. I have no idea what it is. I guess I just have something the ladies like."

29. Now although I was sore tempted, yet I sullied not this moment with the phrase which rose threatening to break from to my lips: "yeah, that kind of runs in the family" - nay, I merely ejected a portion of my beverage in tribute to those gone before, subsequent to a prolonged glissando of raucous, hooting guffaws. Ere too much longer had passed I had struck the bar a resounding blow with my tiny fist, which act caused the entire establishment to pause in what must surely have been silent admiration.

30. Once I had regained some measure of dignity I gazed in wonder upon this once ravaged locale, now bright with the shining faces of the young and professionally urban, its avenues decked in quirky shops, its residential byways now vacant of poontang purveyors. Neither were there the urine stained victims of the vine strewn like stinky mardigras beads across the verge. Their ranks had thinned; no doubt devoured by marauding bicyclists: whirring, irritating, two-wheeled and ill-clad, like a plague of wino-eating, fashion-challenged locusts upon the earth!
Parking was still dismal, moreso now in these Escaladian latter days than in the tiny goofy econobox days of yore.

31. So the hours passed in a multicolored blur of Thai food, transvestite politicians, laughing, leaping babies, adorable preschoolers teaching themselves to read who had manual dexterity skills rivalling those of Irish lacemakers, and charming, charming, charming young men.

32. I SAY UNTO YOU:
Beware tomorrow! When all my grandchildren will stalk the land in glory, recalcitrant, wild-eyed and able to drive...bearing the incandescent, fulminating and very possibly radioactive DNA of Danger Muk, that sinister Jacobs ladder of traits which breed anarchy, random acts of thought, vandalism, and *gulp* early procreation.

33. And once the world becomes the playground of this Red tide, your masters all: gorgeous, sarcastic and deeply weird, what will the rest of you do? The men, handsome as original sin, will charm you extravagantly; the women, splendid as a comet crossing the firmament, will reap you without mercy.

34. Resistance is futile.



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UPDATED: trick-trick-trickING, trickING, TRICKING.....

YES, UPDATED JUST FOR MJ, WHO IS A SPECIAL PERSON. Not special enough to rate amending the main body of this post, of course; just the footnotes. Smilie emoticon implied.



I'se back, ducklings!!!
Yeah, I had this one in the can. I knew I'd probably need a couple of days to get my shit together after I came back from my sojourn in parts exotic. Know that the whole time I was thinking of you and only of you, my darlings, every moment of every day, which is a lie. I was thinking of Tim Footman emerging from the wine-dark sea in tantalizing increments, a sardonic smile playing about his cruel yet sensual lips.
_____________________________
Once upon a time I got a job at a place that I'll call the Totem Inn, because it had a big scary totem pole jabbed in the middle of the parking lot.

Why did it have a big scary totem pole in the middle of the parking lot?

It is a mystery.

Also a mystery is why this totem pole included not only Frog, First Man and Thunderbird, but also Grumpy The Goddamn Disney Dwarf.

Swear to God.

I suspect this place had opened during the boom period of the Seattle Worlds Fair in '62. The 'shed roof, white rocks' architecture was in keeping with the era. Another distinctive feature of the architecture was how obvious it was that the place had gone up in a big hurry, and on a very low budget.

The rooms were divided into 'normal' and 'weird'.


...As you can see from this helpful chart, the distribution of 'normal' and 'weird' rooms was slowly blurring as time and wear overtook the fixtures and those were replaced with whatever happened to be closest to the storeroom door. The area on the right, in the middle of the surveillance zone, was anyones guess...you had run across the lot and check because nobody could remember which rooms were the weird ones. If it was a 'normal' one, the price went up 10.00.

I also suspect that one of the original owners must have been a plumber/bathroom contractor with a lot of return overstock. Everything was beautifully installed, mind; someone took a lot of pride in their craftsmanship - but the beautiful stopped abruptly at the installation method, in the weird zone. And in the completely jacked up zone...? Oh dear.

There were more than 70 units in this motel. Their most distinctive feature was the bathroom. A black toilet might have a bright yellow tank lid, or a pink seat. A jade green 1940's pedestal sink would have one red faucet. There were lavender tubs with bright red soap dishes. Avocado floor tiles with little coffeepots on them combined with shag carpeting.

Still, in the 'normal' section, the bathrooms managed to be mostly one color..like red, or black, or pepto-bismol pink, say. (My favorite was this freaky hard lavender that turned into a strobing nightmare purple when the overhead fluorescent was turned on.)

In the weird rooms, things were quite a bit more mixed up.

As depicted in this colorful diagram, one half of a room would be, say, black and electric lavender, and the other half would be high 70's harvest gold. Lines of tile would stop abruptly and pick up again in a smaller size or a different color entirely.

The 'completely jacked-up' rooms were like a very depressed persons' acid trip. You could tell that someone had tried desperately to bring a little order out of the porcelain chaos...the blue tiles would all be in one section by the 1930's blue toilet, all the yellows in another around the 1970's yellow sink...grouped together despite varying sizes, shades and patterns...but it was obvious that there simply hadn't been enough of any given tile to complete a motif.

This chaos extended to the furnishings, carpets, drapes and paint. Any given 'jacked-up' room might hold a chunky swag lamp, a faux Louis dresser, black shag carpet, one red curtain, one white curtain... counters topped in turquoise formica with little satellite thingies on it, a baby blue refrigerator, and a fire-engine red stove.

The only bath-fixture color in abundant supply was fired this really ominous, arterial maroon. Only one room on the entire lot had a matching bath, and it was this color. I mean down to the brackets for the towel bars, kids. This room also had a bright red shag carpet, red upholstery, red drapes, a red velvet swag lamp and a red refrigerator. Guess what we called it.

Another weird feature of the place was that all of the rooms were skewed on the diagonal. Think of the 'boomerang' style that was popular in Vegas back in the 50's and 60's? Only in three dimensions. And the entire complex was that way. This made fitting standard issue motel furniture into them very difficult.

The rooms with the most ridiculous angles were the designated smokers...which in this case also meant 'cribs'.

The ones in the surveillance zone were set aside for the maids.

Who tricked during their lunch hours.

And brought back dates after their shifts were done.

Well, yeah...this is what you always suspect goes on in a sleazy motel, right? But I'm here to tell you that it was the exception to the rule. A lot of maids are former prostitutes -and they'll be the ones who are the most militant about making an 'honest' living - and some moonlight and trick on the side. This was the only place where I ever saw them shit where they eat.

Of course, 'tang was not the only thing you could buy at the ol' Totem Motel. No, like Alices' Restaurant, you could pretty much get anything you wanted. That was why we maintained a special 'party room' with a separate entrance that opened on the sidewalk, out of view of the front desk.* With a titty bar across the street and three more down the block in either direction, smack in the middle of affiliate territory in Southeast Portland, you were pretty much spoilt for choice when it came to vice. And this all went on beneath the completely uninterested eye of our manager.

My first day on the job he told me ' If you want to work the desk nights let me know and I'll give you a shift. If you need a draw on your pay try and tell me around noon so I can put it on the books. And please wait to do your business until you're off my clock.'

"Huh?" I said. I now know that he thought I was being terribly cute.

"I don't mind if you hook, just do it off the clock. I'm a motel manager, not a pimp, but I'm not stupid either. I mean that seriously, I hired you to clean rooms. Whatever else you want to do, you do. Just don't rip me off is all I ask."

"But I don't hook," I said, all offended and shocked. "Oh my God!"
He ignored me. "Lana can tell you where the working rooms are. And I'd appreciate it if you'd take a load of sheets up with you and try and keep the supplies stocked. It's just polite."

I wandered off with my poor blown little mind going oog oog oog. I thought about heading straight for the bus stop. I didn't.
I should have.

The housekeeping department was completely underground and the sucker was vast, like an aircraft hangar. We only used the four washers and four dryers nearest the door. The rest, possibly hundreds of them for all I know, disappeared off into the distance and darkness where the CHUDS and Morlocks partied.

The storage room was on ground level, and represented the other side of the black hole where the mutant toilets and furniture came through from their home planet. Ever see 'Phantasm'? Kind of like that.

Ah yes, and speaking of home planets...the staff.

At first glance the manager was a completely average balding middle aged man. He lived onsite with his wife and their five hundred annoying yappy pee dogs. The only times I ever saw his expression change out of 'neutral' was when he was acting the host as he checked in a lodger (all the while assessing them for how much weird they were willing to put up with) and when he told me about his last job. "I used to be a sixth-grade teacher. Oh yes, right here in town. Yes, I taught there for 12 years. You know what I came away with?" his eyes began to glitter. "I now know that you can't trust anyone in this life. No one. Nobody's word means a thing. Period. And you know what else?" his glittering eyes narrowed down to slits. "There is nothing worse-NOTHING" he hissed, "...than an eleven year old girl."
Gollum, gollum.

The head laundry lady was a bone-nasty human being, like some evil old gutter granny out of Dickens. She was also the first 'hard' steatopygic I'd ever seen...the fat, solid as chilled suet, began abruptly at the hips and was stacked in immense misshapen lobes from there to the floor. Her ass was the most un-ass-like ass I have ever seen. It looked like a huge sack filled with random sized potatoes. There was no symmetry whatsoever. Only her toes could be seen, because the fat drooped down over her feet...and it was scuffed raw and spectacularly infected from where it drug the floor as she lumbered along.

Her daughter obviously shared moms' diet; the only difference was, her chub hadn't hardened. When she got up from a chair or came to a stop it took all of that acreage varying amounts of time to get the message while it rolled around like an old-fashioned waterbed mattress. She moved within a large, noticeably warm, humid cloud of bad funky like a planet with it's own atmosphere. A salami planet.

This poor girl could barely walk. When she did a room she would first clean everything she could reach without bending, and then lie down on the floor and roll-yes, roll-around and finish up.

We couldn't let her clean the weird rooms or the cribs because she would 'get stuck' in the bathrooms. Accidentally on purpose, that is. It usually happened on Friday around 1 in the afternoon. The first two times it happened the fire department had been called and there'd been a lot of gratifying fuss. After that, everyone got a bit skeptical. And she just kept right on doing it, and suspiciously never calling for help. No, she'd simply lie there on the floor and take it easy while she waited for for someone to come. Then have sobbing hysterics in the office when she saw her check and realized she didn't get paid for her time!

One of my unpleasant tasks as the new kid was to work with her so I could keep an eye on this and figure out if she was doing it on purpose. Sure enough I busted her one day. We were working opposite ends of the floor, but she was easy to find; you just walked down the row-and these were outdoor units- until you smelled her. I stopped outside her room and looked through the window, and saw her just stop, sigh, look around, and then very deliberately back into the bathroom, lie on the floor and wedge herself behind a sink.

Lana was a pro, and she looked like a pro; a very hard-bitten little blonde with perm-burnt hair and heavy blue eyeshadow. She cleaned a full set of rooms and tricked during lunch...and sometimes after work she picked up a john across the street at the titty bar and brought him back. Her husband pimped her out on her days off. She had three kids, drove a Toyota, and was one of the hardest working people I have ever met. Also one of the most unself-consciously amoral.

The rest of the girls were pros, and they all worked half-weeks. I barely ever saw them. When I did, half the time they were waving to me from one of the balconies while their john unlocked the door.

The other people I remember best were the handyman and his wife, Chris and Clara.

Chris was a little person. A very skeezy, creepy, icky, foetid little person.
He had pycnodysostosis (the same thing Toulouse Lautrec had, and probably for the same reason) and this had left him bent into a variety of angles. Watching him scuttle across the parking lot was like watching a sack of scrap metal roll down a hill. I never actually saw him fix anything, although he wore a tool belt loaded down with every imaginable hand tool he could hook onto the thing. The tools clanged off the pavement as he scurried along, hitching up his pants every three or four steps as the weight of all that drop-forged steel drug them down.

Nope, I didn't have a lot of sympathy for the guy. I hope he got run over by an elevator. He was a degenerate. Not even an interesting degenerate; a stupid, mean, low-norm degenerate...a spitty, snivelling, dirty minded, creepy little perverted degenerate who always had dried food on his face and filthy hands, and who beat his wife.

Clara, his wife, was built like a pinto, although she lacked the vitiligo...very narrow shoulders, a huge butt, obscenely bucked teeth and no chin. Like her husband, she was also unwashed and skeezy, and also travelling along through life at about 72 mph. Every few days Chris would beat the shit out of her. I never saw her without a black eye and a swollen lip the whole time I worked there.

One day, sitting around the lunch table with the other girls, just casually, out of the blue, Clara invited me to a threesome with her and her husband. This was evidently a new low for the rest of the group because there was actually a pause in the conversation.

I declined.

Forever after that Chris referred to me as the 'stuck-up bitch'. As in "Hey, Stuck-Up Bitch, put that chair out on the sidewalk wouldja 'cause I hafta fix it."

Another thing I hated about Chris was that he ran to whores. He just could not stay off the sidewalk out front where the working girls pretended to wait for the bus. If the office wanted him they never paged him; they called one of the jacked-up rooms and had the maid open the window on the street side and yell down to him. He'd stop in the middle of a conversation and track every woman that crossed his line of vision like a dog. The first thing you learned about Chris was 'stay out of arms reach'.

I was in the office one day taking a draw on my pay when he came scuttling in with the white showing all around his eyes and the color up in his cheeks. "I gotta have 15 dollars!" he says. "It's an emergency! I gotta have 15 dollars right now! Excuse me but this is an emergency!" So I stepped aside and let him take his draw. "Awright! I'm gonna go get a blowjob!" he announces. All delighted. "I am! Only fifteen dollars! I bargained her down from twenty! Wow! Fifteen dollars! Couldjoo believe that?"
Yes, Chris was mighty pleased with himself.

Once he'd gone, I just stood there and tripped. My jaw was just hanging. Meanwhile the manager counted out my draw and looked kind of annoyed. "Midgets got a dick too, you know," he said.

It was one of those moments when you look at a person and realize that not only are you not on the same page, there is no hope of you ever being on the same page, and it is time to simply pack up your tent and ride your camel off into the night.

Me and my camel lasted three months at this place, part time. While I'd been working there I also held two other jobs, both of them at different motels. (Lest you think I was some kind of super go-getter, this was simply the state of the employment market back in the late 1970's in Portland. People were fighting for jobs that consisted of working two days a week. It was bad.) I'd told them all that the one who offered me full-time first got me. I quit the Totem long before that condition ever threatened to become an issue. It was just too much weird, too much crime and skeeze and constant, daily fucking degradation. Most of all, I was absolutely sick to death of everyone assuming I was a pro. That was the worst part. I hated it. Absolutely hated it down to the bottom of my soul.

One day I just stayed on the bus instead of getting out at my stop. Two days later I got my check in the mail .

Two years later I was head of housekeeping at the downtown Hilton.


________________________________

*the 'trouble room' was for accommodating guests that the desk considered 'suspicious'. In light of what went on every day I shudder to imagine what kind of criteria they were using to define 'suspicious' behavior, though.


AND FOR MJ, WHO JUST HAD TO GET ALL ICKITY PICKITY ABOUT THE DAMN FORMICA PATTERN:
That there is what the sapsucker looked like. Those are CLEARLY satellite thingies. I have never seen thingies which were more clearly satellites, in fact. Have you? No you have not.

NEED THE FEEDBACK! come out and comment, lurkers!

I am going away for FOUR DAYS to visit my son!

While I am gone, I want you to blow the doors off my comments lounge by discussing the following:

Have you ever thought about carrying advertising on your blog? Do you think its a good thang or a bad, evil, sell-out thing utterly antithetical to the spirit of blogging and all that is bloggal?

I have been thinking about the whole subject of advertising on blogs. So far the conclusion I've reached is that I would, but ONLY IF I got to choose the ads (in other words, I am NOT INTERESTED in carrying Adsense or Google ads services.) If there is any way to do this without angering the Google Gods or mighty Blogger, do let me in on it. Or fill me in on the whole seamy underworld of internet advertising and why it is spiritually akin to eating crab and stomping kittens. Either way, a lot of you work on the inside and I'd appreciate the education.

I know I can endorse things in the form of a linklist on the sidebar. I just might do that, unless a significant number of you would find that offensive. Yes, thats right. I have a mouth like a sailor and I regularly bash the Catholics but I'm genuinely concerned about offending y'all with TAWDRY EVIDENCE OF TRADE.

This is NOT about needing money. That being said, I would not tear up a check. I got to thinking about the number of things that I think are way underrated and how I'd like to give them a boost, and as long as I have a public venue, why the hell not stick a few badges in my sidebar? Or tell me why thats a bad idea-really. The internet is a whole new playing field and I'd like to do the smart, as well as the right thing.

DISCUSS.

why you should always cover that sneeze*

I just realized that I've been doing this for a couple of years and yet I've never written much about how I spent ten years of my life. And I know that y'alluns are simply slavering like hounds to hear about the fast paced, exciting world of cleaning mucus off television screens, so here goes._________________________

The first job I got as a maid I got by literally pounding the pavement.

I was living with the Dishrag at the time. We had just discovered I was pregnant, and so in the grand tradition of useless boyfriends everywhere he promptly quit his paying job and devoted himself to his 'music career'. I had just been let go from my own promising career as a sandwich maker at Arbys, and since nobody looked like they were going to pay the bills my pregnant ass hit the bricks.

I walked from 52nd and Powell Boulevard all the way down to 82nd, stopping occasionally to cry, light up another smoke and take a hit off my inhaler. By the time I hit 82nd I simply had no pride left. I was hitting everyplace. I didn't care if I had no idea what the place produced or if I could do it; I applied. Gas stations. Beauty salons. A place that sold Mexican pottery and bottle rockets out of a van in a field. Everywhere.

This is not to say that the jobs weren't out there. Every time I sat down to rest at a bus shelter a car would pull up, and I'd have to turn down an offer of temporary employment. Sometimes my prospective employer was so eager to take me on that he stayed alongside me as I walked, and tried to negotiate a price. Nothing says 'chin up, little buckaroo!' like being followed by an undercover cop who simply cannot believe that you aren't a prostitute, while he desperately tries to trick you into naming a sex act and quoting a price.

I was pretty damn footsore by the time I walked into the lobby of 'D' motel on 82nd and lit up a smoke (back then it wasn't considered bad form to smoke in a job interview, and besides, I was kinda past hope at this point.) I was sniping a handful of matches out of a bowl on the counter when the manager came out of his apartment. I gave him my 'looking for a job' spiel...and be damned if the guy didn't hand me an application and tell me to come back the next day. Quickly regaining my savoir faire, I laughed in his face.

Part of that was because he had about 30 of those small pink plastic curlers stuck all over his head...you remember those? I could smell perm solution or something going on too. I had no idea what to think of this. So I enquired, tactfully, 'Whats with all that shit in your hair?' and he just smiled and told me he was styling it. It ended up looking like this:
I know because I did come back the next day, and I was hired. For some reason.

This place was pretty typical low-end lodging. It just missed being a hotsheet place, and we tried to keep the prostitution down, but we didn't attract many vacationing families either. Mostly depressed salesmen, people bumped off their flights, and criminals of various kinds. Working at this place was a real education.

Maid work is not a skilled profession, nor does it take any particular smarts or even a working knowledge of English. It is a great job for people who are down on their luck or have problems with authority- both of which described me- since you operate under minimal supervision for the main part of the day and you don't have to maintain much of an appearance beyond 'being clothed'. All you need to do is show up for work and do it. And that suited me down to the ground.

Most of the women I worked with spoke using that hard Oregon twang that says 'I went to Eagle Crick high school but I never gradjiated.' Most were divorced. A few were married. Some of them were working a second-income job, but most of the married women were sole support for a family and an alcoholic or disabled spouse. Disability, Unemployment or Welfare supplemented their income. It was standard for their hours to be scheduled so that they still qualified for a full grant with medical and food stamps, a practice which can get a place shut down but was nonetheless common. (After I had my daughter I played this game too. It really helped me get out of the poverty hole, and I owe those employers a tribute of thanks.)



My manager, 'C' was a really good guy. He ran the place like a charity, truth be told; anyone with a sob story could get a break. His useless nephew worked there or pretended to; mainly what he did was wander around stoned, bother the prostitutes out on the side street and pretend to paint parking lines. The maintenance guy spent most of his time with his head over the tank of the lawnmower huffing fumes. He was just out of military jail for drug trafficking. He was also an acidhead and was completely in love with me, not that those states were mutually necessary but there ya go.

One of our maids was the sweetest, chirpiest, nicest little drunk with the best work ethic you ever saw; the designated 'pet old lady' that every place I ever worked had. These poor things were usually widows living on Social Security, barely able to crip along behind their carts. They always kept one of their chemical bottles topped up with bourbon or vodka. They were given an easy string...usually on the first floor down at the end of the building in what they called the 'smokers'. Every month a couple of the younger girls would come in and give the smokers a thorough going over so we could keep our 'A' rating. (The 'smokers' were the cheap rooms, and the customers who rented them weren't the complaining type.)
My head maid was living under an assumed name and identity because her ex was stalking her. A couple of times he found her. She came in so beat up one morning that we called the police and made her give a report. The rest of us were on the same loser hit parade, down to the new hire: pregnant, unmarried, living with a drug-addled 'professional musician'.

Surprisingly this place did not see the kind of spectacular rock-star messes that the more expensive places I worked at did. We did see more than our share of weirdos, though. We had one nice little old man move in and decide he wanted to die there. A couple of U-Haul vans showed up one day with his entire collection of sparkly evening gowns. He liked sparkly. He could be found wandering around in the parking lot on a nice evening, dragging his wheeled oxygen bottle behind him, smoking an unfiltered camel as he tottered along in one of his pretty dresses, wearing the worlds biggest gold bar mitzvah pumps. He'd wave and smile. Nobody had any idea what he was supposed to be dying of, but he was convinced he was, and he liked us for some reason. After he left the sheetrock had to be stripped off the studs and all the bedding, linens and curtains thrown away. The carpet-you don't wanna know.

Back then the customers we hated to see were the Japanese businessmen. Oregon was being purchased by the Japanese at the time, and the little sapsuckers were everyplace. Every single one of them smoked like a fiend and lied about it (presumably to get a better room)...rotten, compost-smelling cigarettes with a picture of a bird on the package. Not even the most desperate smokers would bother to filch one. With the smoking came the coughing, and with the coughing came the wads of snot. For some reason the television screen was a favorite place to leave these particular souvenirs from overseas. It was really horrible. I mean, a television screen way up high on a wall-mounted arm is the last place you expect to run into something ooky, and yet you'd be dusting along and bliiiiiiikkkkkk, ah geeziz shit you've smeared a big old wad of snot across the glass and there it is, dangling and swinging from a string like a horrible cave worm. I said fuck it and started dusting with toilet sanitizer, even though it took the fake wood finish off the plastic.

Even worse were the pipe smokers, the ones who smoked Borkum Riff. I remember taking mattresses out to the dumpster, upholstered chairs, innumerable sets of curtains, simply because there was no getting rid of that horrible vanilla stench AT ALL, not back then. What the fuck can this garbage have been doing to their lungs? Wreaking a horrific karmic payback, one hopes.

The worst of all? Pimps. I have never met up with any other creature in my life as filthy, nasty and downright disgusting as a pimp. And I mean the oldschool meaning of the word; a guy who ran a string of whores. For all their money and flash, these guys were vile. They had a signature funk repetoire too.

Every single surface where an ass could rest or a hand could be placed was coated with a foul, freaky brown combination of grease, nicotene, wine, cigarette ash, various bodily secretions and hair. The tub. The mirrors. The walls. EVERYWHERE. It was like Mark Trails Nature Journal-'the presence of the Pimp is given away by the distinctive and uniform coating of filth which adorns his surroundings.' I don't think any of them ever figured out what toilet paper was for; they left ass stripes on the sheets, the bedspreads, on wadded-up shirts in the bathroom behind the door, on the hems of the curtains...they pissed in the wastepaper baskets and in the beds, there was food smeared everywhere, ashtrays dumped in the dresser drawers....and the sons of bitches ALWAYS STOLE THE TOWELS. These habits crossed all racial and national barriers. It never varied. Not in the lousiest place I ever worked at, not at the classiest. Pimps are the vilest form of life on the face of the earth.

Speaking of pimps, this is the place I was working when I was shot at.

All you really have to do to advance in the ranks at a motel is keep the thievery down to a minimum and continue to show up on time. Soon I was head of housekeeping, which meant a raise and a whole bunch of keys to keep track of. It also meant that I was in charge of rousting. To this day I have hard calcium deposits on the first two knuckles of each hand. Those came from rapping loudly on solid doors. I went around at 10:00 am and again at 11, knocking authoritatively, waking up the profoundly partied out and telling them it was time to get the fuck down the road.

Everyone had to check out by 11: 30. If your shit was still in the room after that time, we put a steel case over the doorknob called a 'lockout' and you got charged for another day. In order to get your crap, you had to pay up. My job was to inspect these rooms for valuables and evidence of illegal goings-on, make a report, and attach the lockout. You can see what kind of potentially dangerous situation this could be.


On this one occasion I was doing my first 'wake up' run down the line. When I knocked on the door of this particular room I heard what sounded like someone hitting the other side of the door with a rolled up magazine-THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK- and figured "Ok, well they're up," and moved on. I came back later to clean the room, and thats when I noticed the four shiny new indentations on the inside surface of the door.

Yeah, I freaked. I also showed up for work the next day.

Anything that was left behind and remained unclaimed for 90 days went to the maids. We'd put sticky notes with our names written on them on the items in storage and if we still wanted them after the time was up we'd flip a coin. Of course, if anything of an illegal nature happened to fall into our clutches it never made it as far as storage, with the exception of the occasional hand gun. People were always leaving guns behind. We'd call 'C'. He'd put on a pair of gloves and come pick it up and put it in the office safe. The police didn't like us much (being scum of the earth motel employees and all), and...well, yeah, fine, most of my co-workers had warrants out. Anyway nobody wanted anything to do with fingerprints on guns.

It became clear early on that there were two main stereotypes associated with motel maids. The first was that they're included in the price per night. It wasn't that way. Maid work is hard work, and most maids are there to earn an honest paycheck. Anyway, the last thing you felt like doing was giving one of the pigs you just cleaned up after a little play. I have only worked one place where the maids tricked, and as soon as that became clear I left (although therein lies a tale, lemme tell ya). This is not to say that we were not a fun loving bunch; any given group of maids is rastier and ranker by far than the scurviest, saltiest restaurant crew you've ever worked with.

The younger women were tough, if nothing else, hanging on by their teeth and fingernails to keep their kids fed. A lot of the older women had come up the hard way...cut firewood, picked apples, worked as laborers in the shipyards, turned tricks in logging towns on the coast. Maid work for them was nothing; it was easy money, the best job they'd ever had. We younger girls would start bragging about our mileage and they would not only shut us up, they'd leave us slack-jawed. These were the first older women I'd ever met who not only admitted to having had a wild youth, but were proud of it.

Let me return to that 'honest paycheck' issue. Earning honest money is a point of pride with maids. These are women who have difficult lives for the most part, but who make the decision to take the high road, even when it means cleaning up after a suicide. That honestly describes most of the maids I worked with. Of course, so does 'former inmate', 'addict', and 'all six of my kids have different fathers'. As well as 'sticky fingers'.

Which brings me to the second, and unfortunately true stereotype: maids are thieves.
Yup. Lots of them are. And the ones who thieve keep the stuff they steal and show it off to each other like trophies. It's weird. Put your valuables in the office safe. Maids make minimum wage. If you trash your room, bet your bottom dollar that somethings going to get ganked.

On a lesser rung of the same ladder, most maids will go through your shit while you're gone. I did.** It started out as part of my job when I did lockouts, and I returned to it every now and then just for something to do. Why? Sheer nosiness. Information, too.

That's one of the unspoken-but-understood parts of the job...everyone reacts in horror to the very suggestion of going through a strangers belongings, but it is expected that you will. In defense of that I'll say that it's often very good to know what you're dealing with when you have a long-term guest, because long term guests in low-end lodging are often shady characters. If you want to keep the police on your side, you contribute information. Word gets around that you co-operate and some of the criminal traffic drops off too. Thats life in the big shitty.

Which is not to say that we really do it for that reason because we don't. Oh yes. We not only go through your shit, we compare notes and laugh at you behind your back, too. Hiding your double-ended dildo under the mattress is fooling nobody, Rev. Miller. We make the beds, after all.
Yes, you never forget the first time you tug a bottom sheet out from between the mattress and box spring and it brings a vaseline-smeared vibrator flying out with it, and same hits you in the leg. And turns on. And lies on the rug going 'RRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrr' while you hop and flap and go EW EW EW EW EW. You know what happens then? I make your bed, and your little buddy ends up on your pillow.
Have a nice stay.




_______________________________

*and now for the answer to todays question 'why you should always cover that sneeze': because if you don't you risk getting window cleaner tipped into your bottle of japanese nasal spray.
hey, respect is a two-way street.

**Of course, if you happened to have a bag of weed, I pinched out of it. You bet I did. Are you going to complain? No you aren't, you lawbreaker you. By the way, I dipped into your painkillers too. Lock your suitcases, people. You're dealing with minimum wage workers here, and the swankier the establishment, the more they resent you. You'll be leaving a tip whether you choose to or not, in any event.

a baaaaaaaaaaaaad mother-

Last week at the library I decided to pick up a collection of Steven Hawkings' essays, 'Black Holes and Baby Universes'. Unlike his American edition of 'A Brief History of Time', 'Black Holes' carries a very pleasant picture of Mr. Hawking. This Steven looks like he might actually know a couple of dirty jokes and be up for a glass of beer. In contrast, 'Brief History's EVIL HAWKING DARK LORD OF THE INFINITE looks like he'd have no problem using the Force on your sad ass for breaking the yolk on his fried eggs or something.

As I read the essays I went back to the picture a few times, thinking 'Check out this ordinary looking guy with his glasses here. What a hell of a mind you have." And lest that seem to be damning the man with faint praise, know that I approach very little in this world worshipfully; and so I'm approaching Hawking as simply a guy who wrote a book. That explained, it's an exciting book about a very abstract subject, expressed with the most glorious lucidity by a nerdy looking man who looks kind of like the counter guy at UPS.

We know how I am about NERDS.

He seems like he must be a pretty good guy. He had a total slacker attitude growing up. He barely slid into college. Once he was there , he joined the sculling team. Not your ordinary pocket-protector nerd. I mean, Jesus...can you scull? You can not. Chaucers' Bitch can. Go check her out and tell me you'd want her pissed off at you. Hawking must have been a fairly hard little sonofabitch, in that sexy ' evil scrawny British fucker' kind of way. He was kinda cute too. Check him out in the b/w photo here. Hell yeah.

He didn't stop being bad when he got sick, either. He SOARED.

Yes; the man has a great mind, but having a great mind and being hard enough to push your views to the forefront of academe are two different things entirely. Furthermore, he's tough enough to take criticism that would demolish me. Extraordinarily well-informed criticism. Also more than his share of really evil, low criticism in many cases. He faces it up, and pretty damned graciously too, considering that 'evil and low' seems to be an accepted norm in academic circles.

Hell yes, I'd do him.





And don't start with me. They all look like that... right before they come.

The sum greater than the parts

My Biker and I are fricken' GODS in the kitchen. He and I constitute 2 halves of one whole culinary genius.
I don't mean in terms of technique, although we have our shit down. No, I mean in terms of coming up with recipes and combinations that are absolutely excellent. I can honestly say that with very few exceptions, the best meals I have ever had have come out of my own kitchen, and the Biker was the one who made them possible.

When we started out, we both maintained separate batteries de cuisine. It was goofy. Over the years we both learned to use the others tools and quit sniffing at each others preferences and methods. That coming together just deepened over the years. We both like the same cooking shows and we both take food seriously, but we'll get completely different things out of a given episode or recipe. But those things WORK when they're combined. He'll ask me questions, I'll ask him questions, we'll plot and plan and throw out suggestions to one another. We've learned from each other, and joined forces, and...shit, I dunno. Its just been black magic.

Me, I'm the studious one; I do the research and experiment with the theory. I can prepare pretty much anything I can read about because I have a feel for the 'craft' and food as a medium. But the Biker can perfect it. The Biker is the flavor genius. He is the one who can tell what something is going to taste like simply by knowing what the prep technique is, and know where it's going-or, what the goal of the recipe is, if that makes sense. He has a memory for flavor that is uncanny. His instinct for meal combinations is inspired, and his intuition for knowing exactly which technique will get him the result he's looking for is too.

Take for example our latest triumph: the Wendy's Spicy Baconburger, improved.

OK, it isn't fois gras with shaved truffles.

This is one in a number of fast food attempts to appeal to a growing ethnic market in this part of the country. It fails miserably. I went right out and tried it, certain that the combination of jalapenos, smoked bacon, jack cheese and a burger sounded like a natural.

It isn't, not the way Wendy's does it. And thats a rare failure for Wendys. They generally put out a quality product. The Cheddar Burger they came out with awhile back was worth going out of your way for. But on this one they miss the mark.

The advertisement caught the Bikers attention this afternoon, and I explained to him where the burger falls down-too many patties with too high a fat content, canned jalapeno rings piled in an unwieldy heap in the center of the sandwich,underdone bacon thats salty and flabby; pepper jack cheese adding nothing but more fat to the equation. It's like biting into a goopy mess; hot bland candlewax with sesame seeds.

"But the combination should work," he said. "What if....the bacon was very well done, very crispy and well drained. And the number of the patties cut back to one; two is overkill." The jalapenos could be retained, but they would be chopped up and pressed into the melted cheese on top. That cheese would be cojack, which has got a little character, not pepperjack, which is too mild and loses it's identity behind the authority of the jalapeno and the bacon. No seasonings whatsoever...the flavors of the ingredients would be enough, and would 'happen', if you get my meaning, in the mouth as you chewed it. Sliced tomato and onion to add flavors, crunch, juice and a temperature difference. No lettuce, because we wanted to build on the savory flavors, and besides, lettuce wilts and would take away from the crunch. We wanted this to have the classic hamburger combination of hot and cold, crunchy and juicy, and these things have to stay separate from each other. This is a hamburger that you don't get sick of after a few bites, because every bite has just a little bit of a difference from the next one.

Have you ever though about it like that? It's true. There are a lot of different things that go into making something taste good, even something plebian like a hamburger. Temperature, resistance, mouth-feel...its interesting. The Biker has an instinct for it.

And by God, it was a revelation. It was FANTASTIC. I feel kind of bad for Wendys now. They had a really good idea, but they didn't take it far enough. If they'd had my Biker on their team they'd be making millions of dollars off this thing.


Smokin' Biker Burgers

1 small can Herdez sliced jalapenos in escabeche, chopped
hamburger, medium fat ( not extra lean or regular grade; right in the middle.)
thick sliced hickory smoked bacon, fried very crispy and well drained
sliced ripe tomato
sliced white onion
co-jack cheese
sesame buns

whatever condiments you like on your burger; i use just plain ketchup, the biker uses mayo.

cook the burgers medium well and drain.
top with chopped jalapeno,
place a slice of co-jack on top and
melt quickly under the broiler.
top with room temp bacon, broken into pieces (not crumbled.)
stack on bun with cold tomato and onion.

And that's it. Simple, right? It's heaven.

We RULE.

die, two-wheeled SLIME : updated!

(..except for SOPWITH CAMEL. but the rest of you, yeah. OK fine and BEAST too. Jesus H. Christ already.)

Y'ALL PISS ME OFF.

A bicycle is not a car.

No, really, a bicycle is NOT a car. It isn't! Really it isn't! Honest to God.

That is why they have BICYCLE LANES. Perhaps you've noticed them. It's the lane over there to the right of the cars going by, and it has PICTURES OF BICYCLES painted on it, as well as the helpful phrase: 'BICYCLE LANE - BICYCLES ONLY'
You, on the bicycle, are supposed to ride in the BICYCLE LANE.
We, in the cars and trucks, drive in the TRAFFIC LANES.
If there is no bicycle lane, DON'T RIDE YOUR FUCKING BIKE THERE.
BICYCLISTS DO NOT BELONG IN AUTOMOBILE TRAFFIC.
NO.

Oh, see, now you're getting that smirky look on your face. YOU are a skilled and safe bicyclist.
Uh huh.
Thats why I've never seen one of you hesitate to run a light, or cop a glide off my truck by grabbing on to one of the stake pockets.

That must also be why you ride FOUR FUCKING ABREAST in the middle of the lane, chatting, passing your sports bottles, admiring each others heat rash ON CHUCKANUT DRIVE.

View Larger Map
...what they say it looks like

...what it ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE. oh hell yes. click for big. you'll see.


Blind corners? Please! No shoulder? You laugh-HA HA! You are on a bicycle! There is a view! GOD HAS DECREED THAT IF YOU ARE ON A BICYCLE AND THERE IS A VIEW THAT YOU GET TO RIDE FOUR ABREAST ON THE MOST DANGEROUS STRETCH OF 2-LANE ROAD IN WHATCOM COUNTY!

Yes, go ahead and yell things after me for DARING TO DRIVE A CAR on your road! Aw, did I pass you too close? Perhaps that's because there are no shoulders on this stretch of road, just a sheer drop-off down to Puget Sound on one side and a SOLID FUCKING MOUNTAIN shooting straight up off the ONCOMING SIDE. And then there's that whole issue of you RIDING FOUR ABREAST IN MY LANE thing.

You're breaking the LAW, DIPSHITS.

But still you claim your right to join the flow of traffic! YOU can maintain posted speed limits due to your SUPERIOR HEALTH! BECAUSE YOU BICYCLE! ALL OVER THE PLACE! NO CARS! CARS ARE BAD! EVIL EVIL CARS! AND BECAUSE YOU BICYCLE YOU ARE A VIRTUAL GOD OF RADIANT SUPER HEALTHINESS!

No! No, You are SELF DELUDED, you fucking moron.

BICYCLISTS CAN NOT MAINTAIN MINIMAL TRAFFIC SPEEDS FOR A SAFE OR SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT OF TIME. Its simply a fact; you are human powered. Not even Lance 'No Spare' Armstrong can maintain a steady 35 mph....or even 20mph. Not even cheetahs can do that.
Maybe a Klingon could.* But you, my friend, are no Klingon.

For instance, it takes me, driving my Environmental Rapemaster 250, less that half a city block to get up to road speed from a standing stop. Can you say the same? You can not. Consequently you cause TRAFFIC PILEUP, which is a situation where lots of cars have to slow down to a dinosaur burning idle while your lycra clad ass is fiddlefarting along 'saving the planet'.

I may also blithely toodle along and ignore with impunity flying bits of gravel, large and small insects, wayward birds, smaller dogs, cats and possums... you see where I am going with this? You catch a piece of gravel and its another story ENTIRELY. There are enough hazards out on the road. I do not need you freaking out and crashing just because a fricken' BEE hit you. The frame of your bike is really hard on my tires and you make that dismaying 'whumpwhump' sound as your body passes beneath my car.

You simply DO NOT GET TO RIDE IN THE SAME LANE AS A CAR. You don't get to do it in town and you don't get to do it in the country, either.

Again: Let me direct your attention to the big ol' solid stripes painted along the margins of most country roads out here, and the simplistically rendered image of a BICYCLE every few feet....? THAT MARKS THE BICYCLE LANE. That is a special lane we as taxpayers have designated as a BICYCLES ONLY lane for special people like you who ride bicycles! THAT is the lane where your shiny spandex butt belongs!

From there you may mock me from the moral high ground of your Alsop Carbon Suspension! Jeer me as you pedal down lifes' highway with your unfortunately dark and prominent butthole perched right at eye level, a butthole which is clearly visible through the fabric of your shorts, a
butthole which is winking and gurning furiously at me like Satans Own Rear Indicator Light as
you pedal briskly along.

Oh, you didn't know that?

Yeah, weird thing about stretch fabrics; even if they're on the thick side, or a dark color? When the light hits them right they're transparent. Now sometimes that's not a bad thing, I'll admit...then again, Dark Poochy-Outie Butthole Man Peddling To Beat 60 In Low Gear, sometimes it IS.

Riding a bicycle does not automatically render you, Bicycle Rider, morally superior to me in my car IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER.

No, I realize that you think it does, and you'll pardon me while I go grab another pantyliner out of the stack because I'm really cracking up here. I am. Honestly, you are saving the earth, Mr. Bicycle Rider? Single handedly? You there rigged out in 1500.00 worth of shiny petrochemical riding gear? THANK YOU MR. BICYCLE MAN.

part dos: Y'ALL REALLY, REALLY PISS ME OFF.

Bicyclists of Whatcom, Skagit, and particularly Island Counties, I hate to break it to you, but you are in large part morons. You are.

First of all, you are easy targets. SUCH easy targets. I am driving an enclosed vehicle that can go fast, and I have a baseball bat on the seat next to me. You are perched atop 5$ worth of low-grade aluminum and you're sucking Vitamin Water out of a container with a nipple on it. Still, you did insist on whizzing up alongside me ON THE CENTER LINE and then getting pissed off because I didn't see you when I made that left turn I WAS SIGNALLING. Mr. Bicycle Man, it is probably best that you not ever kick my drivers' side door and call me a stupid bitch again, sweetheart. You remember what happened last time? We saw a lot of downtown Bellingham that day, didn't we? Amazing the places a truck can squeeze into, isn't it?

Secondly, you spend ENORMOUS dollar amounts on equipment and accessories that do nothing but provide a substandard means of elementary transportation at best. Now, bicycling as recreation; as a sport, even as a means of local neighborhood conveyance, all good and sane uses of the bicycle. As a primary means of daily transportation through midtown traffic? HAULING AN INFANT IN A TRAILER?? NO.

Thirdly, you dress like a bunch of gimps.

No really, did they see you coming or what? Do you really believe that wearing a helmet shaped like Aliens' head is really shearing seconds off your time? Lycra, bucko? SHINY LYCRA? And do you honestly spend so much time at speeds in excess of sanity that you need to wear those stupid shoes that look like decapitated flamingo heads? You REALLY NEED AERODYNAMIC FOOTWEAR?? OH MY GOD GUESS WHAT ME TOO!!!!!!!
Yeah, I love it when y'all try to walk in those things.

Wait; I need another pantiliner. Ok.

Fourth, that 'virtuous by merit of my extraordinary athleticism' act you all put on. Seriously.
You come whirring in to a wayside. You hoist ass off the seat, which is invariably slick with ass-sluiced perspiration. Groan dramatically. Heave your trembling leg over, and hunker off bent over like a 90 year old lady, staggering and clattering along on your ridiculous plastic shoes with your knees as far apart as they can go. If male, you then yank down the front of your shiny shorts and out flops the Little Bicyclist for a pee. You stand there panting, trembling and sweating, apparently too much the focused athlete to bother with petty things like, oh, facing away, or going the extra few steps to the restroom. Finally you collapse backward onto the grass in your Cirque Du Soleil outfit and make everyone step over you. Yes, hail the conquering hero, all conspicuously worn out from your self-inflicted, earth-saving recreational exertions.

Please fuck off.

Fifth, hubris means nothing when you weigh 98 lbs and you've just crossed the Pass. Yeah, thats right, you had to post 'Warning: such and such tavern UNFRIENDLY to bicyclists!' on the Best of Whatcom site because you rolled in smelling like a woolly mammoth and tried to run your 'make way' arrogant bullshit past people on MOTORCYCLES.

Wow, did you mis-read that cue, huh?

When the banner out front says 'Biker friendly' it means 'Motorcyclists', darling, not 'Naturopaths and Vegans in Spandex'. I can hardly imagine why y'all need to stop at a tavern in the first place; I've never seen one of you dipshits finish a beer, you just swill it around in your mouths and then spit it out like Mohammad Ali between rounds. I'm not real clear on what that's supposed to convey. Still. Wow. Spitting, huh?

Heres a clue: If you're going to patronize an establishment where a significant number of the clientele have assault charges pending and you swagger in dressed like an extra from Xanadu, or Rollerboogie, it's a safe bet you're going to get a certain amount of hassle. Yes, we all saw you summiting Stevens Pass a few miles back, crimson and puffing, sweating like an undercover terrorist confronting a pulled pork sandwich. Still, nobody here is impressed by that.

You know why? Because WE'RE NOT.









______________________________________

* of course I admit that if I saw a Klingon in spandex riding a mountain bike in traffic I would allow the fucker all the searoom he wanted just on general principle. Ride Safe, K'rathNg.

....OK NOW THIS IS JUST DEMENTED.

http://klv.mrklingon.org/

THIS IS THE KING JAMES VERSION OF THE BIBLE TRANSLATED INTO FRICKEN' KLINGON, FOLKS.

I may cry.