Caravan

You'd think I'd have learned my lesson about transporting potentially dangerous goods across country borders and state lines back in my Montreal-bound college days, but I hadn't. It was in this same spirit of adventure that me and my ex from Colorado decided to move back east with an almost fully grown werewolf sitting next to me in the passenger seat of my car, connected to my boyfriend driving alone in his big red truck through walkie-talkie. Uh, yeah.

Ted did not wear a seat-belt, nor conform to quaint human customs like not moving around a speeding car while driving on a busy highway, which included his attempts to get into my lap as I drove us cross-country, because he "werewolf-remembered" sitting that way with me as a puppy while Kent drove us around Denver. Clever. The first two days were fine, with our biggest concern being the motel owner not noticing a rather large wolf-like object accompanying us into our hotel room for the night, though I had tried to prepare for our overnight stops with a list of animal-friendly places along the way printed off the computer, like any other idealistic new mom.

On the third day of our road trip, Ted totally lost his shit. He'd been wonderful until then, but two days of long boring car rides had offended him beyond belief, conditioned as he was to better stimulation from his parents. And it wasn't a light rebellion, either. He fucking blew his stack in the middle of a rainstorm high in the Pennsylvanian mountains while I was passing two large trucks on both sides that completely doused my car in vision-impairing sheets of water while Ted tried to climb into my lap with more force than I'd felt until then, before banging his head against the window and crying at the top of his lungs.

I scrambled shakily for the walkie-talkie with an emergency "Mayday" call to Kent, who was pissed off about stopping while we made good time, but there was nothing else I could do. A Giant M'Loot Malamute with exceptional bloodlines has been bred to know when enough is enough, and we'd both had more than enough. We stopped at a misty field in the mountains, waiting for Ted to regroup while he walked around scenting the air.

He reluctantly got back in the car, but the warning to me was clear: no more, Mom. Any East Coaster knows that every big road trip ends with the massive length of Pennsylvania's mountains of forest to confront for hours and hours of radio silence before finally making it back home, like a lesson in patience and homesickness. Lesson learned. While Kent deconstructed himself to implode within a mere ten days in the city (nice, New York; what is that, a record?), I walked through beautiful Prospect Park with Ted, as I promised myself I would never let anyone get between me and my home again, and I haven't. That's the strength and power of a mother's word.

See you next week.

Going to Graceland

We were much more Beatles fans than Elvis fans growing up in my household, a distinction in tastes sharply noted in "Pulp Fiction", in an infamous scene between John Travolta and Uma Thurman. My college boyfriend was an Elvis fan from Brooklyn, which is sort of like being an urban cowboy. It didn't fit, but he liked to cop tastes contrary to the norm to appear different, like sporting a beret or wearing an ascot.

And so I found myself going to Graceland one summer, on an epic road trip that spanned the South to my Dad's place in West Texas. I love road trips, finding them much more preferable to horribly bumpy and terribly turbulent flights that go against the Gulf Stream, a fact that was confirmed for me when my Colorado boyfriend began private pilot lessons. It's gotten worse, too, from compulsive over-travelling brought on by a runner's type of fast pace neurosis that's as addictive as their high sugar and highly caffeinated lifestyles. Chemtrails are the sign that you've polluted the sky, you ugly American.

My exes would fight me on my American preference for the open road, but given my quickness of mind, I usually won out, as I did in this case, because my Brooklyn boyfriend didn't have a driver's license or a car. He was captive to me and my advanced skill sets, a state of affairs that never abated during our acquaintance, much to his chagrin. I made the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia my first day driving, to a smog-filled summer's day that took the wind out of my sails for the rest of the trip. Going to some tourist trap to see the housed remnants of a overdosed singer I never really liked? Great. What a way to spend my summer.

Two days later, I brought us to the state of Tennessee, for a tour of Elvis Presley's house. My very stoned boyfriend was so out of it from getting high in the parking lot, he blurted out that he wanted to see "EVERYTHING!", when the ticket agent asked him which tour he wanted. We'd been flagged by the golf cart security duo as outsiders, for walking towards the house from the graffitied walls outside the grounds, when you were supposed to know to go across the street to buy a ticket, even though no signs were posted with instructions to do so. When he found out that it would cost us over $150 (in 1988, on a working class college kid's budget), he blanched white, and in an embarrassed whispered aside, I told him to just do the house tour.

It was horrible. Priscella still lived in the top floors when she was in town, so we went past his recording studio and racketball court to an impromptu grave site in their backyard, which gave me a blessed moment of silence among the weird hick crowd, who worshipped him like he was some sort of demigod. They also toured his tour buses, his car collection, his costumes, his airplane collection (one of which was named the "Lisa Marie"), and a movie theater that showed his films exclusively. I half-heartedly bought a couple of tepid souvenirs in the gift shop, and then we got back on the road.

My naive New York City boyfriend didn't know how much trouble I steered him out of, until we stopped at a gas station in Mississippi, with a visibly pregnant (and cigarette smoking) woman talking with the clerk behind the counter. They both narrowed their eyes at us when we walked in, eyeballing his dopey "CULTURE" t-shirt, with the word emblazoned over a picture of 70s rhinestone jumpsuit Elvis visiting the White House, posing with Nixon in the Oval Office and shaking hands. He wanted to make an ironic hipster statement that was cutesy "tongue in cheek", and definitely not appreciated by them, which was backed up by our brief exchange with the rural couple at the counter.

The large beer-bellied clerk said to him: "What does that t-shirt mean, boy?" My young boyfriend nervously deferred to him with two palms up, in a conciliatory gesture: "Oh, we've just been to Graceland. It was awesome!." I paid for the gas and asked for smokes, while the two hicks pondered his statement. After a very long pause with continued staring, the large man finally said to us: "Well, we worship him around these here parts." And with that, we were back on the road, albeit with a much more sober and quiet white kid from the city sitting next to me.

Happy trails to you America, on all of your summer road trips. For most of the masses, this is prime vacation season. Just be sure to steer clear of rural areas that worship dead, drug-addicted rock stars. See you 'round the way, mes amis.

CULTURE

Dream Car

Can you guess what this is?

When I was a little girl, Mailbu Barbie's dream car was THE BOMB. 
It's as true today as it was back in the day, as evidenced by this scene (and others) from the "Toy Story" series of movies:

"Tour Guide" Barbie gets all the guys AND Ken, yo!

I had other cars I really liked, like the one described in a Nancy Drew series of green cloth-bound books that my mom borrowed from her cousin Nina, so I could read them all. Nancy Drew had a little red Miata that she tooled around in, solving crimes and beating traffic (and criminals) with her boyfriend Ted, going from book form to movies, and groovy 70s t.v. shows:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/belongings-nancy-drew-author-auctioned-sunday-toledo-article-1.1540850

I also liked "Herbie, The Love Bug" as a kid, but in real life nothing beat the good ole sex appeal of an American-made Mustang, because it's hot and cool at the same time. Like so much in my life, it was no surprise when I saw one parked in the lot next door, colored a light yellow that almost matches a certain Dutch farmhouse on a street named after a boy named Henry. It's perfect for me, n'est-ce pas? 

It's got a cute lil' nose, right? Such nice personality for a car!

Happy motoring out there today, friends. It's finally warm enough to take the top down and drive around, in beautiful New York state. Enjoy the ride!

What else, but a Mustang in pale yellow with removable hard top?