My Summer Vacation

Never try to guess a woman’s bra size by the sound of her voice. – Jack Reacher

The old man awoke at dawn in warrior mode.  Already packed.  Pulled out at oh-seven-hundred.

Took the long way.  The idea of driving the northern hinterlands of rural Florida in mid-summer seems a form of self-abuse.

Not the good kind.  If I am going to end up on the shitty end of a Lifetime movie, I want it to be in a well-lit area.

Upgraded the World’s Most Expensive Malibu’s GPS system.  Seems inferior to earlier version and yet more costly.  I turned off the General Motors product when I was driving along some two-lane blacktop paralleling the Interstate.

I traveled Europe with a globe and it was easier than this satellite crap.  Of course, there were a few fewer countries.

Been back a week now.  Feel so empowered.

The old man can still banzai down a muddy highway at ninety (90) miles per hour (mph) through driving rain while surrounded by heavily-loaded eighteen(18)-wheel trailer-trucks apparently driven by Benzedrine-maniacs late for promised pussy and peach pie.

And come out the other side of the construction zone.

Dodging big orange barrels.  Bob’s Barricades can kiss my ass.

The Tan Retired Blonde is still going on about our first AirBnb.  “I miss my little apartment,” she sighed.  “It was so quiet.”

She loves our dogs and birds and our fish, but she misses those boys.

She misses those boys. “Aren’t they good?” She asks just so she can answer her own question.  “Aren’t they special?”  Their mother acts like they are normal, like all little boys are this amazing, but their grandparents know better.  Los Tres Bros.  The grandsons are definitively worth the drive.

Mom, too.  And Winston, the English Springer Spaniel, some kind of emotional service dog.

Ah, the drive.  Let’s just say the Interstate is in crisis.  Xanax helps.

I hope the kids let me come back real soon.  This time, I’m going through the woods.  Gonna use my own compass this time.  And a radar detector.

You probably don’t know this about me, but I am not quite as sophisticated as I pretend.  Frankly don’t give a shit about sophistication.

But I know it when I see it.  I like it, I appreciate it.

So, the Myers Park neighborhood of Charlotte, North Carolina, six hundred savage miles of hard road from my hideout, was, well, let’s just be honest here for once, a sophisticated fucking change.

Beemers and Benz.  Boobs and braces.  The old man had to class up.  The boys showed him how.

Stay slender and quiet and always leave them guessing.  I am not even blood-related to these little men and they already act like my kinfolk.

Stay slender and quiet and always leave’em guessin.’  Hell, that was practically my father’s family motto.  You look for us, check my ancestry, you are lucky to get past my grandpa.  Like we just popped up out of the dirt.

Willing to bet…  good-looks, etiquette, charm and listening skills will take you a long way in middle school.

Never saw anybody eat more chicken tenders than my Skip.  Who is actually starting to look like a chicken tender.  Two words for you, boy – Sa lad.

Like to think I speak with some authority, as a drug, French fries leave a whole lot to be desired.

We always go to Barnes & Noble.  Looked for When Running Was Young & So Were We, like the dreamer I am.  Notice the toy section greatly enlarged.  If I could just figure out how to have my book transform itself into a plasticized alternative title like Fifty Shades Of Omarosa.

Bought my wife a self-help tome.  Okay, she paid, but I picked it out.  Number One New York Times Bestseller.

Two Million Copies Sold!  Never heard of it.  YOU Are A BADASS.  How To Stop Doubting Your Greatness And Start Living An Awesome Life.

By Jen Sincero.  Which sounds like a phony name to me.  Figure if the Tan Retired Blonde gets any awesomer, it can only help me.

A guy across the street gets visited regularly by nurses or prostitutes.  We can’t tell the difference.  I’m not that sophisticated.

Left the boys at home to read The Martian and I went to the Oscar De La Renta exhibit at the Mint/Randolph Museum.  Some real fancy frocks.

Also walked the Duke Mansions gardens.  It’s free.  Strolling through a beautiful property with a beautiful woman on a beautiful day, garden you don’t tend nor pay taxes, for free, it’s a beautiful thing.

Where the fuck was I?  I am crying.  I miss that big dog so much.

I was so happy to have him, why I am so sad not to any more.

Most fun was watching America’s Got Talent with the boys.   There’s these three bright kids you don’t really know and together you are watching  piano-playing chickens and disabled dance teams in high heels and silly comedians jumping through computerized fire.  Some curious stuff to talk about.  And our politics align.  They don’t believe what Rudy Giuliani said the last time, whatever it was.  Children you could talk to.

Whoever thought of that?

Come home – flowers died but we have championship weeds – to a week’s worth of newspaper.  To think, trees died for this.

Headline – Florida is in a mental health crisis.  Headline on the editorial page, because, I’m guessing, it’s no longer news.

A mother throws her baby in the river.  She says the dead girl is now pure.

Boa constrictors battling giant iguanas while alligators cheer, for God’s sake.  And the water’s glowing and stinging red.

This year every school got an armed guard.  With real bullets.  Last year we lost all the librarians.  Damn bibliophiles wouldn’t shoot and cost more than psuedo-police, who can’t make it on the streets.

Where was I?

“The truth isn’t the truth,” explains the White House lawyer.  Facts evolve, we are supposed to believe.

“I hope this is a very temporary place for the Republican Party,” said retiring Senator Bob Corker. “I hope that very soon we will return to our roots as a party that’s very different, especially in tone, from what we’ve seen coming out of the White House.”
Highlight is mine. 
The whole fucking problem is Trump is telling the truth about his base which the delusional self-hypocrites have been denying since Goldwater and Reagan and Welfare Queens and Mexicans With Calves Like Cantelopes and some black guy that smoked a joint twenty years ago.
That’s what the base means when they say he’s authentic or he says what he thinks, which is what we think.
Fuck TONE.  Mike Pence has tone.  Paul Ryan has tone.  (Hilary had tone, sure, just different.)
Tone sucks.  Tone got us here.
Tone is outrage against activist judges until you pack the courts.  Tone is outrage over budget deficits unless you create them.
Tone is the voicing of “freedom!” while taking away everybody else’s rights.  Tone is the Religious Freedom Protection Task Force.
Tone is pretending you are truthful as you simultaneous tell people not to believe what they see or hear.
Tone is not singling out specific religions or skin tones – that word? – for persecution or prosecution.  While doing exactly that.
Tone is preaching about law and order.  Brown babies in cages.  Zero tolerance.  HaHaHahahahah…
Look, Helen, a family of blacks barbecuing in the park.  Call 9-1-1.
Tone, my ass.
Okay, I feel better now.
Just took immense Hagrid’s immense bed outdoors.
About to deconstruct his kennel.
Like Ozzie The Bear came to life in the shape of a grey-and-white Muppet.
Only much, much funnier.
Like there’s somebody in there.  He was a hot mess.
Here he is in stealth mode, waiting for somebody to reach for his little blue ball.
Beer before noon!!
But only after my workout.
Turns out the cleanest carpet in the whole entire house, not counting the master closets, was under his kennel the whole time.
Ha!
He was a part of me.
I have been taking care of him for a decade. Ten plus years.
Last night there was nobody to carefully step around on my way to the hot tub.
I am okay.
Upon serious reflection we could’ve done nothing more or nothing else.
The vet’s need to get away for the weekend was a blessing.
For all of us.
Hagrid was ready to go.
Lily came out while we waited for the removal team.
She smelled his mouth and she smelled his butt.
Might’ve been the other way around.
But she left.  Seemed to say, ‘Hagrid, he’s not here any more.’
He escaped.
He went on a trip, yeah, that’s it.  To a farm upstate.  Sure, where he can run free without pain.
Way, way upstate.  I know he misses me.
Took four of us to get him into the van.  Proud to be my pal’s pall bearer.
They – Natures Pet Loss – were in a hurry, gotta go before rigor mortis sets in.  He has to fit in the cradle.  I don’t ask what that means.
His foot got stuck in the screen door on the way out.
I don’t know if you really fully understand.  He was the size of a broad-shouldered cougar.
Only much, much funnier.
The meaning of life is that it ends.
You don’t regret the losing, you rejoice the having.
Life is not all summer vacation.
Even a dog knows that.
What he taught me.
1 comments on “My Summer Vacation
  1. JDW says:

    The last photo, where he looks so sad? The World’s Biggest Puppy is not locked up. He is locked out. It’s a safety measure. His muzzle is poking through the escape hatch for the little old Pomeranian. Dixie was the gamest of creatures but sometimes a girl just needs her rest.

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