Ok . . . humph . . . so most of the people I know in the human world have no idea what a blog is. If they do, it’s a superficial knowledge at best. And their superficial knowledge comes out sounding like an ABC Nightly News sound bite:
“There is a new internet fad sweeping the nation called blogging . . .”
If I am lucky, they might know that people who blog get fired for blogging or that blogs were the reason that CBS got into so much trouble with the whole fact checking George W. Bush’s military record issue or that maybe their sister posts pictures of her kids on the internet and that’s a blog, right? For this reason, I pretty much avoid the fact that what Dave does for a living is essentially run a technology blog, that we are able to live off of the income from this technology blog and that we have been “blogging” since 1997, way before it was called blogging.
Big deal. Instead, I usually tell people, who ask, that Dave works in high-tech as a publisher.
Finding the space between blogging and the face-to-face world is an interesting challenge. And I think our world is ready for that challenge.
Salt Lake City, Utah: Easy E’s Muddy Feet Liberty Park, Salt Lake City, Utah
My sister called me as Eli found the only mud puddle (might I add, thick mud) in the very dry super large park just after we finished watching the Pioneer Day Parade and while Dave went to get more salt.
“Don’t you all dress up for Pioneer Day?” she asked me.
Kyle ran to see more ducks that were scattered among the 50,000 or so people as Eli sobbed,
“I am big muddy, Mommy.”
Me and Easy E, at the Pioneer Day Parade, Liberty Park, Salt Lake City, Utah
Back to the phone call, I intently responded to my sister:
“Well, I put matching shirts on the boys so I can keep track of them — if that counts. I guess the clowns dressed up and the people on the floats, but no, we don’t dress up for Pioneer Day.”
Ok. I am exaggerating my response a bit. I probably just said:
“No we don’t dress up for Pioneer Day.”Exaggerated response or not, as Dave was still retrieving salt, I thought to myself, “The outside world must have the same view I did/do.”
A Few (typical) Utah Stereotypes — as seen from the Outside of the state:
1. Everybody in Utah is required to dress up for Pioneer Day, Bonnets and All.
2. Everyone in Utah is a Republican.
3. There are No homosexuals in Utah.
4. Women in Utah are especially good at crafts. (You know with all the quilts we are making and bread we are baking.)
5. Everyone in Utah is an extreme, non-swearing, non-caffeine-drinking and a Mormon.
6. All the stores in Utah are closed on Sunday.
7. Additionally, there are no Liquor Sales on Sunday.
(Actually I don’t think you can buy alcohol in Utah County on Sunday or in Montgomery County, but Montgomery County is in Maryland.)
Wawa, harv and the boys at the Pioneer Day Parade, Liberty Park, Salt Lake City, Utah
[Back to the parade or the parade story:]
So are Utah parade’s and customs any different? After my recollection, you decide. So last night about midnight I found myself on the phone with the Delta Customer Service Agent, Umberto. Umberto had the most soothing voice I have ever heard spoken by a Customer Service person. As he made our reservations, even going as far to sense our next request, and then change the dates, because he heard Dave speaking in the background, I realized that I would have to end my therapeutic and darn right relaxing conversation. I needed some sleep. We needed to be at the parade early to help Mom save seats.
Float at the Pioneer Day Parade, Liberty Park, Salt Lake City, Utah
It did not matter that my Mom called at the crack of dawn. We were still late. When she came to pick up our chair, thank goodness she told me to stay home and that she would get seats for us. I had a whole forty-five minutes to relax and get everyone ready. I chose breakfast and five more minutes of sleep over washing my hair. Who cares if it has been like six days since I last washed my hair?
Because the road was blocked off, we could not make it to where my Mom and Harvey were seated. We we walked those long city blocks in the opposite direction of the parade route. In spite of their screams and urgings to get out and WALK NOW, I thanked myself for insisting on putting the boys in the double stroller. A girl threw a firecracker at the boys (true story.) And as we walked by her, I felt a sense of pride as we rushed by and I threw her a big Angry Mommy look.
Wawa and Easy E, Pioneer Day Parade, Salt Lake City, Utah
We arrived and got situated about seventeen times. Then the parade began. The cool cop motorcycle riders stopped right in front of us and did their cool cop motorcycle tricks. As the floats and marching bands passed, Dave and I kept reminiscing about the drill team championships on the Eastern Shore during our honeymoon. These sloppy Utah marching bands didn’t compare.
“And remember someone was shot at the drill team championships? And someone getting shot totally trumps Dick Nourse and the Channel Two News Team.” I proclaimed.
As I took pictures of the floats and my kids, I saw that my kids were much more interesting to look at. The anticipation of seeing such dignitaries as Bob the councilman from Murray, UT and the Copper Field Marching Band (members totaling thirty-one) couldn’t ease the onset of my A.D.D. and as Orrin Hatch passed by and waved, I could only muster a half-hearted comment,
“Down the hatch!”
Even our “Mystery Science Theatre 3000” back seat commentary couldn’t save us, and by float eighty-eight Kyle said,
“I am done watching people go by.”
Wawa & Kyle, Pioneer Day Parade, Liberty Park, Salt Lake City, Utah
Somehow both boys settled back onto my Mom’s lap. Thank goodness for Grandmas! With my very full bladder, we made it to the end, float number one-hundred and twelve.
Pioneer Day Parade, Salt Lake City, Utah
With mine and Kyle’s bladder relieved upon Kyle’s urging to,
“do something fun now,” we made our way into the crowds of people and all the vendors cooking their hot food in the 95 degree heat where my story began.
Big Daddy at the Pioneer Day Parade, Salt Lake City, Utah
After soaking themselves in water streams, we, I mean the kids, tearfully left the park. We were actually quite happy. Sure, we are in Utah. And yes, we were celebrity Mormon Pioneers. But like the fourth of July that we celebrated on the third of July (July 4th fell on a Sunday this year), today’s parade was like any other mid-size town parade: crying kids, stepping mud and gum and corn on the cob with lots of salt.
And after such a big day and a stop to get me and the kids some lunch, we went home and all took long naps.
Us at the Pioneer Day Parade, Salt Lake City, Utah
This morning as I sat at tribal council I was sure that I was being voted off the island. “No, don’t write ‘Beth’ down! I really want to stay!” As I watched the others cross my name off their voting slips I knew I had succeeded. I was going to stay until next time. With a jolt I woke up, looked at the clock and realized that if I didn’t get a move on Kyle would be late for pre-school. I watch way too much reality television…
A few days earlier:
As I tried to keep my eyes open just one more minute before Dave came to bed my mind wondered off. Moments later, Dave startled me out of my haze as he climbed into bed. Without warning I blurted, “So how many people are living on the planet right now?” “Oh, I don’t know about eight billion,” he said. Completely freaked out I responded, “Okay, that’s a lot of people. And how many people have lived on this planet?” “Not as many as you may think.” “Even eight billion is a lot of people.” I continued, “Before you jumped in bed I was wondering. You know when I die there are a lot of people who will have died before I did. And if there are even eight billion people in the great beyond how will anyone I know be able to find me? I am having an anxiety attack just thinking about it.” “Oh Beth, don’t worry about that. I’m certain they have some kind of system.” Dave said as he gave me a kiss on my forehead. “I’m sure it’s a very good system. And you know, Grandma Koener will find you.”
My entire life has been filled with my night time dreams, daydreams, and dreams about what I hope for. When I was bored in school I developed the art of the daydream. So perfected was my talent that my teachers often spoke with my parents about how I was wandering off. “She’s just somewhere else,” they would say. “We need her to pay attention.” Well, if you challenged me enough maybe I would not have to occupy my mind with other thoughts. Damn “Gifted and Talented” Program. But that’s a whole other post. I would drift off and fantasize about how I was going to meet Bono from U2, how he would find me cool and intelligent in just the right alternative way or I would picture my house and then re-model it during one period of science class.
When I was about five years old I was walking past my next-door neighbor’s house with my sister. The creepy neighborhood Dad summoned us over.
“Come here. You can walk through the gate.”
“Bethy, you did something to my kids (I can’t remember what), and if you do it again the alligators, you know that alligators live in the pound in our back yard, will come and get you.”
“I did not know that.” I anxiously thought.
He thought he was being funny, but how was I, a five year-old, supposed to know that alligators don’t live in Minnesota. There began my years of alligator nightmares. I had my alligator dreams so often that I began to think of them as my own personal terrorizing television series with re-runs and new characters periodically introduced. It went like this. I would have the dream, scream myself awake and run to my parents room where I would hop to safety in bed with them. Over time (years) I would just sleep on the floor next to their bed.
I have had a prolific, or shall I say, just plain weird life as far as my dreams go. There was even the time when I was in high school sharing a room with my sister Dominique where I was sure the Titanic was going to sink me. I was riding on a little raft and couldn’t get away. I remember sitting on her bed screaming for her to help me.
“The Titanic. I am going to drown. Please Help.”
Somehow my parents and a guest startled out of their own sleep found me standing in the closet with my blanket over my head belting a most possessed and blood curdling scream. It took moments for them to wake me and sure enough Dominique slept right through it.
A dream I haven’t been able to shake for years is the one that I have heard many people have. All of a sudden I am back in high school. Somehow I haven’t finished a class and so I have to go back so I can graduate. After all these years I never go back to college in my dreams, but always high school. A year or two may go by and I think I have finally conquered the high school dream and then it creeps back in. Just last week I had the dream again. I was back in high school. I need to finish a class. I was completely freaking out because I was so old and yet I had someone explaining, “You never graduated.” Surely I had. In the back of my brain I tried to tell myself it was a dream. Then after the years and hundreds of replays of this dream something changed. Dave was back in high school with me. Instead of me taking the brunt of the awful experience he took it for me. Progress. I hope so.
Eli singing “Old Macdonald” at my Brother’s Birthday Party.
The Wrap Up:
I always like to somehow tie the boys into the story.
Sunday night Eli began screaming. He had been asleep for some time. Dave ran to see what was wrong and found Eli shaking. It was obvious that he had had a bad dream. When I came to see what was wrong, Dave and Eli were sitting in our bed.
“He was shaking. Poor guy. He had a bad dream.”
Eli and I talked about it for a moment and then his tired eyes closed as he sat in between Dave and me.
“I do not want our kids to have to go through this. Have I passed on my dreaming curse?” I thought.
This morning as I was backing out of the driveway Kyle said,
“Mom, I don’t want you to die. And you know what? I don’t want to die either. I don’t want Daddy or Eli to die too.” “I don’t want us to die Kyle. I like being a family.”
Like myself, Kyle reminded me today as he does every day that it is more than dreaming or daydreaming; it is about thinking. We think a lot. I have even been told on occasion that I think too much. As I heard the words, “I don’t want you to die,” come out of Kyle’s mouth I was sad that he was thinking about such a hefty topic as a four year old, but I was glad that he does think and moreover that both Kyle and Eli dream.
And Speaking of Dreams.
As I was changing Eli’s diaper this morning I asked him if he had any dreams last night.
“I did. I was outside. I blow away. I blow away in the wind. And Kyle was wearing a red hat, a big red hat. And there was a monster. He was a nice monster, a big nice monster. The monster says, it’s dark outside.(Eli’s hands raised in the scary monster pose), He says rarrr.”
We flew to DC Wednesday night. Aside from Eli’s mid-flight, “Mommy, get off the plane now” panic attack, the flight went really well. Kyle was so well-behaved I forgot he was flying. Eli, dripping with sweat, wanted out of his seat and off the flight. It took a lot of coaxing and then he settled down.
We left Utah where it was about 80 degrees. We arrived here to the utter shock of about 40 degree weather. We stayed the last two nights at a hotel and will be going to Quinn and Max’s tonight.
Kyle, Eli & Wawa Celebrating Halloween Early
Kyle and Eli two nights before we left. We had Halloween with Wa-Wa (my Mom). Instead of knocking from the outside, she waited in our driveway while the kids knocked from the back door. We had treats in the yard. Kyle decided that he no longer likes his dinosaur costume. What will we do now?
Feel free to post because sometimes it is hard for us to especially send, but also receive email. I will update soon. I actually don’t even know how many people read this site anymore. For those of you who do, I will update soon.
Eli, the Sandbox Park
Eli at the Sand Box Park. Dave took the boys to the park the day we left so I could finish packing.
“Well, there were sure a lot of people sitting there at the bar at 3:30 in the afternoon,”Dave says as we drive out of this middle of nowhere, middle of Nevada town. “Home of the Vandals,” he remarks as Coldplay’s “The Scientist” plays in the background (accompanied by Eli’s cries).
“You don’t have a tethered pacifier?”
“No, I can not find it.” I blurt out.
“I am trying to write,” I think.
“What” Dave asks and I pause and take a deep breath, “a remote little town.” Dave continues,
“Think about how far Eureka is from anywhere. At least there is a road going through it. Though it has been a long time since anyone has used Route 50 as their main way of getting across Nevada.” I say.
Eli’s cries have thankfully turned to bursts of laughter. Kyle is hooked up to our traveling DVD player watching his scary Dinosaur movie, “Land Before Time IX: Journey to Big Water.”
Eureka, NevadaEureka, Nevada
We are headed eastward.
It was several years ago when I last drove through these dust-filled parts. I was invited for Thanksgiving to a college friend’s home in Yerrington, NV, a sleepy town much like Eureka. At the time I arrived in Yerrington they were just installing the town’s first stop light, a much needed and talked about improvement. Like Eureka, the locals were hanging out at the bar in mid-afternoon, smoking their cigarettes, playing the slots, and sipping their drinks with the big screen TV playing sports and news in the background.
We drove up to my friend’s parents’ home (a half complete trailer park trailer), which was plunked down amidst a scrubby dirt patch. I walked into the door of their half-completed home as I saw my friend’s father sitting in the bare, unfinished room, cigarette in mouth, watching the only item in the room, the television.
“Dad, this is my friend, Beth.”
There was no response. As my vision blurred and my sweat glands overloaded I thought to myself,
“What the hell am I doing here?”
I was eighteen. I had just moved from lush, populated Minneapolis to go to college in the west, and now I was in the middle of nowhere; nowhere in a cold, smoke-filled, and partially complete trailer home.
“Dad, are you going to answer me? This is my friend Beth.”
With that, he briefly turned his greasy head towards me and said, “Hi.”
Then she gave me a tour of her home. When we reached the bedroom where I would be sleeping, I said,
“Do you mind if I take a nap? After all that driving I am exhausted.”
I could see that my request gave her relief, because I could see that she was embarrassed about her surroundings. Mostly, I realized that in my inconsiderate haste and worn-on-my-face panic I had made her feel that way.
See when I was eighteen, I really felt like I not only came from the right place (Minneapolis, Minnesota), but because I came from a city that somehow I was more sophisticated or enlightened (not true). Now I realize that my projected “sophisticating” was simply disguising my needs-medication-styled homesickness and separation anxiety.
I had not been napping long when my friend and her Mom came running to my room. Because I was asleep I did not realize I was screaming,
“Mom, Help me.”
I know. Not only was I wearing my uncomfortable feelings on my face, I was screaming them in my sleep.
The rest of my Yerington, Nevada weekend is a blur. I do remember that my friend took me with some of our other friends to the local bar. At the bar, my friend’s boyfriend gave me a roll of nickels for the slots, which I burned through in about ten minutes. My friend and I also the trip to the big city of Fallon, Nevada to see a movie at the local sticky shoe movie theater. I loved it. And then there was the car accident we saw as we drove back to Utah on Interstate 80. A man driving a big old truck had gone over the embankment. When we drove by we saw smoke and then his truck over the edge. We pulled over and hiked down to see if he was ok. Remember none of us had cellphones. We had to go old school and stand at the edge of the interstate in an attempt to wave an oncoming vehicle down. We waved down a semi. He pulled over. We told him about the accident, and he immediately radioed for help.
The man, who was thrown from his truck, was disoriented (of course), and was bleeding heavily. As I watched the blood gush from his head, all I could think about were the brand new bath towels. My mom new I needed new towels and had just bought them for me. I never had such nice towels and cherished them so much I brought them along. They were packed away and sitting in my friend’s car. At that, I took a deep breath, hiked back to my friend’s car and got the towels. I put the towels in my arms and walked them back down the steep embankment. I handed them to the man. And someone (I can’t remember now) wrapped them around his bloody head. The ambulance arrived. I don’t know his name. I don’t know if he lived or died. I do not know what happened to my towels. We just drove a way.
Today on Highway 50 I drive across all those memories. I see the white crosses and flowers of roadside memorials zipping by. I wonder if there is one for the man. Then we stop in dusty, lonely Eureka. I am reminded of that Thanksgiving. This time I am with my husband and sons. This time Kyle and I take a walk and pick up pinecones. This time we laugh at the fun we are having. This time I am a mom, and this time I do not scream.
Eureka, Nevada
SIDEBAR
Best Driving in a camper van advice ever: when we were driving on this same Nevada Highway 50, I took over the wheel. I asked Dave what I should do if I saw a deer in the road. He said, “whatever you do, DO NOT SWERVE!” (True Story) Moments later a Jurassic-Park sized jack rabbit (jack-a-lope I am certain) ran into the road and immediately stopped when it saw me. I did not swerve. I promise. I would have. Instead the jack rabbit lost his life and I saved ours. High fives to Dave and his most awesome camper van advice!
We are leaving San Francisco today. We are headed toward Big Sur and the to Great Basin National Park. On the way we will hit the Apple Store and Fry’s Electronics. The kids are great, but hard to contain in this apartment where we are using the net. I am afraid Kyle is going to destroy Dave’s friends’ Big Screen television and I hold his arm as I write to prevent him from shattering their glass table.
Kyle, Union Square, San Francisco, California
Eli is screaming because we have him strapped in the stroller. Oh, the sacrifices we make our kids go through so that we can get on the web. Please post. It is easier to check the site than my email when we are on the road.
