Trans/plant/portation

After seeing the Grand Teton and Yellowstone parks, I wondered if my retinas could take in any more amazing landscapes. Not to worry, apparently we had Bighorn National Forest and Badland National Park to get through, and those blew me away. Before last summer I’d never had occasion to climb around the side of a mountain high enough that I could gaze down on all of it like an eagle. And though I’ll always love my Jersey shore and the calm I feel just listening to the Atlantic surf, I also think I’ll never tire of the euphoria of being at the top of a mountain chain. If I wasn’t such an accident-prone scaredy cat, I’d seriously think about climbing to an actual peak.

We headed out from Cody, Wyoming, after our quality time with Old Faithful and its friends, first stopping at the local Albertson’s to get a few provisions. It was there that the cashier told me that 9 people had been struck by lightning at Old Faithful just two days earlier. Egads! And nobody was talking about it when we were there, not that I walked up to the rangers and asked if there had been any bizarre accidents near the geyser lately.

The actual spewing of sulfury goodness was pretty fun to watch. Old Faithful should have a subtitle of The Big Tease, because it spews a little and stops, vapor billowing out the whole time, then some more water, back and forth until kablam! the thing is off to the races. An annoying guy who kept trying to make eye contact with me had a devil of a time trying to capture a photo of the lead-in frothing before the big release, but he kept failing because he insisted on turning off his camera between attempts at getting a shot. People, charge up your camera batteries before you attempt to take pictures for hours. Or just buy a nice, professional photo in the visitor’s center. They have plenty.

So with our educations edified about the safety hazards of Jellystone, we departed our friendly grocery store and started pushing eastward again. We’d gone a ways from the main interstate to get into the national parks, so  we were cutting our way back when we spotted a small post office. I for one love small post offices, for several reasons, including the lack of long lines and the earnestness of the service—smacking just the tiniest amount of desperation to see another human being, but mostly just free from the crushing bitterness that comes with being a public servant in a busy, crowded office. We pulled into the parking lot, which had three spaces in it, and headed inside.

A lovely transgender postmistress greeted us, and we chatted with her for a few minutes as we figured out our postage needs. It’s always hard for me in those kinds of moments not to jump up and down and do a trans dance, but truth be told, there is no ballet of the trans, as much as I’d like for there to be one. And there’s no way not to sound creepy with any such announcement, so I just bit my tongue, trying my best to look extremely happy to procure stamps. We left, wondering what it is like for her in a town with a stated population of less than 100. Were people supportive? Had she lived here her whole life? It didn’t escape us that her employment came from the federal government and not say, from the local farmer’s cooperative or some other local business. She was cheery and smart, and I figured she’d won most everybody over with her charisma, but maybe I just like thinking that. We were fairly satisfied that we’d met the GLBT community for the tiny town, if not the vast majority of it.

Maybe I’ll send her a postcard sometime and tell her how much I appreciated the experience, but probably that’s still too creepy.

Eventually we made it to a 75mph road and triumphantly made our way into South Dakota. This meant we drove through Bighorn National Forest, which looked like this:

Yeah, that was what we thought, too. We had set our compass for Mt. Rushmore, mostly because we didn’t think we could miss it while driving this close to it, but also to see what we presumed would be grandeur and awe. As opposed to shock and awe, which neither of us, frankly, would drive to experience.

Roughly 2.7 million people visited the monument last year, which means that nearly 3 million folks were disappointed in spending the $10 parking fee to see some sculptor’s ego carved into the rock. The guy was a little kooky, preparing to sculpt “famous Americans” and put them into a vault called the Hall of Records for what, some alien civilization to discover? Something that would stand the test of time after we’ve obliterated ourselves from the face of the earth? I don’t get it.

We saw the monument, and I didn’t appreciate it because it was football fields away from me, giving me to sense of its real size. The curating of the exhibits were fourth grade level and didn’t answer any of my questions about why those presidents, why that order. I much prefer the Lincoln Monument in DC, the FDR Memorial, the exhibits that allow some kind of intimacy with the work and the subject, but I grant [sic] that that’s just me.

Next up was the Corn Palace, which not one but five friends insisted we stop and see on our drive. The last time I listened to such pushiness was for taking the Maid of the Mist in Niagara Falls, and it didn’t let me down. So naturally I presumed this would be pretty awesome in all of its kitchy-ness.

It wasn’t. While once upon a time the corn palace was completely redone every year, now only the panels on the building change, and they’re mildly interesting, but not interesting enough to warrant driving through Mitchell, the townies of which must just hate all of us tourists. It was fun enough, and I remarked that it was better than Mt. Rushmore because we didn’t have to pay for parking and we got some very tasty popcorn to boot.

Finally, we hit Sioux Falls on the east side of the state and met up with my friend Anna for lunch at the Phillips Avenue Diner. Note to everyone: fried cheese curds are an excellent bad for you snack, and I recommend them when they’re on the menu. Sioux Falls had an interesting feel to it, somewhere between Portland’s sprawl and the downtown of a small city, like Savannah. Anna showed us the actual falls, which cascade over pink quartz. I can not believe how much rock there is in the United States. Why don’t we export more rock? Where is the rock economy? Nobody is talking about rock getting us out of this recession, and we’re sitting on so much of it! We have to play to our strengths, people.

Clearly, it is time for breakfast. Pictures galore in the next post.

We’ve been through four hotels in as many nights, and after our repeated exposure, I’m now prepared to say a few things about the Tourist of the West, at least as far as hoteliers are concerned. Using the set ups of our rooms as indirect indicators, I’ve deduced the following:

1. Tourists in the West like extremely hot showers. If you are not a Tourist of the West, you need only turn the shower dial three-quarters of a scant inch to get the water in the hot tub range of 100–103.
2. They are likely to bring along their small-to-medium size dog, even to national parks where the rangers tell them that those dogs only look like tasty snacks to the bears. Because clearly, they aren’t just dogs to the Tourist in the West, they’re part of the family. Would you leave your little sister at home while you go on vacation? (That’s rhetorical.)
3. They still smoke. Nothing cuts through the crisp air of Wyoming and Idaho like a fresh Marlboro.
4. They appreciate the free continental breakfast. Even the 2.5 star motels have a free continental breakfast of Costco-purchased food. Nothing says roughing it like making your own burned waffle while CNN plays on a communal television.
5. The Tourist in the West either doesn’t noticed or has actually caused every bed in the hotel/motel circuit to be as lumpy as spoiled cottage cheese. Perhaps using topographical maps as beds is a form of massage that I simply haven’t yet noticed.
6. The Tourist in the West likes to fancy herself a horse-riding, white water-rafting expert, although it would appear that she has done neither in a long, long time. The people out there riding horses and braving the Snake River seem to be different tourists altogether.
7. The Tourist in the West likes to wear a ball cap from a college they attended roughly 40 years ago, or a ball cap from some relative or friend’s college attended roughly 20–40 years ago. This is because they think, it appears, that they are thus wearing a conversation piece on their head. DO NOT engage the Tourist in the West in any conversation, however, unless you have half an hour to kill.

Now then, back to my vacation! We’re going to see Mt. Rushmore today, and thus discover why South Dakota’s tourism revenue far, far exceeds that of North Dakota.

Another brief run-down in numbers of our trip. We’ve now spotted:

• a beaver, who regarded us from about 10 yards away and let us get a couple of good pictures
• a white wolf, who went running by our car on the side of the road at the Grand Tetons
• two bald eagles, separate sightings
• a hawk or osprey, who flew away when we got too close
• a mountain blue bird, who literally posed for me
• at least 30 bison, one of whom walked next to our car
• an elk couple, gnawing on some grass
• a grizzly bear, too tired to stand so decided flopping over on his side was preferable
• a couple pronghorn sheep on the side of a cliff

The Grand Tetons and Yellowstone are really incredible, simply put. There are so many different kinds of features I have a hard time fathoming that we’re in the same 300,000 acre area. Hot springs, geysers, mud pots, and volcanoes on the west side of the parks, enormous canyons, mountain-fed waterfalls, iced-up lakes and evergreens on the east and southern sides. And everywhere, precarious cliff drops, beasts and birds of prey, natural wonders I’ve never laid eyes on before, I could look in the same direction for 10 minutes and keep seeing new and interesting things.

The other thing I’ve realized on this trip is that it takes a hell of a lot of work to make a national park functional, from building in trails and roads without disturbing the ecosystem, staffing the park with rangers who know what they’re doing, writing up points of interest accurately and interestingly, and effectively keeping people aware of safety hazards and relevant laws. This last one cannot be understated as challenging for the park service. There were so many times Susanne and I saw people behaving with total ignorance of their surroundings, or what I can only imagine was disregard for rules, laws, and guidelines.

Passing a sign telling us that this area was “frequented by bears,” a hiker pulled out a sandwich and started eating it as she walked. Mm, tasty human with tasty roast beef sandwich!

At a hot springs basin in which all manner of sulfur-living bacteria floated on the water, smelling like dead bodies, a woman dipped her hand in the water, for what reason I have no idea. Susanne and I were astonished at her carelessness—she could contract a parasite, or worse, become the Undead Swamp Woman. Or so I imagine.

At the same hot springs basin, a sign warned travelers of the thin crust to the earth, and to stay on the raised platform. Here is the sign:

This sign clearly shows a boy off the raised path, regretting his action, while a woman with a pained expression on her face looks on, trying to figure out what to do as the child begins boiling himself. Notably, a man with a bag in the background walks on, aloof and indifferent to the entire ordeal, which tells us something important. Never trust a guy with a man purse. Let’s please also note that this sign is in five languages, and topped with an eye-catching red banner. There really is no reason not to at least glance at this sign. You’re about to walk through a lava field, people. Aren’t you the least bit interested in what the rangers saw fit to share with you?

Does this look like you should stand next to it?

So what did we see happen four feet from the start of the trail? An entire family, one by one, getting off the platform, walking right up to a bubbling crevice, kneeling next to it, and pointing at it, the other members of the clan gleefully snapping pictures. Of what could be their last moment on earth. I think my jaw dropped.

Later that day we saw several vehicles stopped along the side of a road, and we figured something interesting must have been happening, so we slowed down, since rubbernecking is okay in these parts. Lo and behold a grizzly bear was sitting in the brush, just hanging out. We had also read by this point no fewer than 10 pieces of instructions regarding bear encounters, everything from how to photograph them safely, to proscriptions against feeding them, to what to do if one attempts to rip out your throat (note, it does not involve climbing a tree).

None of the people taking pictures of this grizzly were abiding any of the very incredibly sensible rules around bear trauma avoidance. No one was keeping a safe distance, all of them were out of their cars, presumably going on some kind of numbers game—he’ll probably attack someone other than me, so I’ll have a chance to run back into my Hummer3. One woman with her crappy Canon PowerShot (hey, I’ve got one too, so I know about these things) asked another person, “do you see any cubs?” What the hell, lady? Susanne rightly knew that if there were cubs around, this bear would not be nearly so docile-seeming, and chaos would have already ensued. There’s nothing like a real vacation killer than running for your life because you had to get a close up of a baby animal and your zoom just wasn’t cutting it. People seem not to realize that the professional photographers of the wilderness world have amazing equipment that lets them get extremely close shots from very safe distances. The amateur’s stupid Pentax is not going to be the same. Just by the $10 poster print in the national park store and be done with it.

I can only glean from all of this bad behavior that our time is fairly limited on this planet. Those hot springs have been pulsing out boiling water way longer than we’ve been around, and they’ll be here after we lose out to the cockroaches and sparrows of Earth. But it’s a shame—we humans went to the trouble to create language, and then we spend so much energy not listening.

And all that aside, the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone are really amazing places. More on that tomorrow.

I have been dreaming of sitting in a hot tub for months now, knowing that we’d planned it for the first leg of our cross-country journey. Having spent a week in Radium, British Columbia, last summer, I had some expectations about what Lava Hot Springs would be like in Idaho. It’s actually the first set of expectations I’ve ever had for Idaho that didn’t involve either potatoes or white supremacists. And while I’m sure that’s not entirely fair to a state that hasn’t actually done anything to me personally, I have driven by Disciple Way in the northern part of the state, and it made this Lebanese boy rather nervous.

Our original plan was to leave early today, the day after we vacated our house, but the thought of getting up at 6 in the morning to drive for seven hours was just overwhelming. I didn’t think we’d manage it, actually, or if we did, we’d be off on the wrong foot, all cranky and overtired. So we caught our second wind yesterday and drove as far as we could until it was time to turn in. Well, logistically speaking, we had to figure where we’d be likely to find safe and decent accommodations, so we identified that it would be either Baker City or Ontario, OR. We pushed it and made it to Ontario, which made Walla Walla seem like a veritable metropolis.

The front desk of the Holiday Inn was happy to tell Susanne that this was a full-service hotel, I suppose because it had a “Tap Room” and a sit-down breakfast available at the Country Kitchen. We had hit the big time. As it was, we were excited to get out of town quickly, so we pulled into a Burger King and got breakfast: two crossanwiches, two orange juices, one water, one coffee. I drove away as Susanne popped open her orange juice, the iPod humming with some catchy pop song dittering along. My coffee was way too hot drink for a while, so I looked for some OJ.

“Oh no, they only gave us one,” she said, looking around.

I eyed her small container expectantly. And I was astonished at what she did next.

She saw me seeing her juice box and rushed to get her mouth around the straw so she could finish the last sip! Yes, she raced to finish the juice!

I drove with my jaw hanging open.

“I really wanted that juice,” she explained, as if articulating her awful behavior would somehow provide impunity. I muttered something about sending an email to Burger King.

After five hours, we rolled into Lava. It wasn’t nearly as pristine as Radium, but at least it didn’t have any kitchy fake Bavaria presence. We quickly changed into our bathing gear and the warmth was all around us. Susanne and I positioned ourselves in front of two hot water jets. The joy was indescribable. After 20 months in Walla Walla, a week of constant packing, and months of anticipation, we were here, our feet floating in 104 degrees.

On the other side of the pool, an interesting conversation emerged:

Older woman who identified herself as a beekeeper: So what is it you do?

Guy who had been chatting up everyone at the springs: I was a stockbroker for 30 years.

Beekeeper: Oh. So I suppose you haven’t been doing very well in this economy.

Asshole stockbroker: Oh, this is when people make the most money, actually.

Beekeeper: And how well do you sleep at night?

Asshole stockbroker: Oh, I sleep fine.

We decided we liked the beekeeper, who also took the guy to task over saying the mortgage industry collapse was all the fault of poor people who couldn’t afford their houses.

Afterward, we started driving again, through valley system after valley system, cutting through five or six rows of mountains. As soon as we would get used to one style of mountain—say, tree-lined—we’d round a corner on a pass and would then befall a new style, like snow-capped rocky outcroppings. All above us, clouds and sky. The sky is so big out here, actually, that just standing on the bottom of the canopy one can see entire weather fronts, rolling this way and that. When lightening strikes it gives all of itself away, from the start to the terminus, and for 50 miles around, everything is bright, just for a few seconds.

Finally we drove along Stateline Road that divided Wyoming from Idaho, and I’ve never seen anything as informal as that boundary. It’s not like the state line between Washington and Oregon is lined with armed guards or fences, but there are signs denoting the two states’ territories, and oh, road lines. This was a rung or two up from a seasonal road, and it was barren of all markings, as if each state were refusing to spend money on painting the surface. Unleashed dogs ran around on the shoulder, and buildings that had been abandoned long ago had also at some point given up their ghosts and just crumbled to the ground. It was a rural brand of poverty that made me realize a little better how many Americas there are in one big country. And all that mountainous beauty amid such a dispossessed people. When we finally came across rich houses with four-car garages, I sensed my own frustration at the inequity.

We motored on, driving under a ridge of a T-cell storm, the rain literally on one half of the car, and pulled into Jackson Hole. I’m not sure where the tourists are form who visit here, but there are a lot of tourists. It was late enough that most of the shops and tourist-boutiques (read, fake nice things) had closed for the day, but we wandered in to the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, or perhaps I should say we sidled up to it. Sure, sidled is better. Susanne and I ordered up a buffalo and an elk burger from the window and watched a local band belt out some country music. I still can’t see country folk and not think they’ll have Southern accents, but I’m trying.

Then it was time to turn in. We’ve got some exploring of the Grand Tetons tomorrow. I wish I’d never realized that “teton” is French slang for boob. Crazy French trappers.

To start off, a few numbers related to our move out of faculty housing:

6 rolls of packing tape

32 boxes of books

50+ pieces of fragile pottery to wrap and pack

3 bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms, 1 living room, 1 dining room, 1 kitchen, 1 basement and 1 garage to pack up

5 hours to move everything

$625 to move everything

6 hours to clean everything (including 45 minutes on the oven alone)

3 minutes on walkthrough with the maintenance guy to check everything over, downstairs only

0 minutes on walkthrough upstairs

3 friends at final dinner before heading out, featuring food from taco truck (delicious)

3 hours to Ontario, Oregon, landing at a Holiday Inn with the softest, most comfortable bed ever

And on the way here I had to pull over to take this picture:

Then we saw a rainbow off our port side. As the sun faded, the rainbow lost the shorter end of the color spectrum, leaving only pinks and reds. We drove through the Blue Mountains, then the Wallowa Mountains, and it occurred to me that you couldn’t put two more unlike mountain systems any closer to each other. The Blues are covered in sage and scrub brush that looks like soft velvet from the highway, while the Wallowas seemed barren, rocky, so jagged they cut the fat clouds of the late spring storm. I caught my first glimpse of ball lightning in what seems like years, as rain falling from the sky typically barely makes it to the ground in Walla Walla. I will note though that we had a fairly wet spring. Wet for the desert, that is.

Driving closer to Ontario, the sky turned yellow-red, and we knew, living next to Washington State’s death row prison, that it must be a correctional institution. Sure enough, there was the sign. And this is just one of many things I’ve learned about since I moved to Wallyworld.

But now here we are on our roadtrip, and I promise many photos and hopefully, laugh-inducing stories of our latest road trip. For now, friends in Walla Walla, take care, and we’ll see you soon. Friends in DC, here we come!

For the past couple of months I’ve been wondering just how to communicate about the Liar House to the next people who move in here, without alerting the maintenance staff. Sitting atop the downstairs medicine cabinet? Might not ever be found, period. Inside the chimney flue? Would just go up in flames, or fall out if (and this is a big IF) the college attempts to clean the chimney before the next occupants are here. Kitchen drawers will of course be opened, leaving it in the freezer might result in it being unreadable or overly brittle with frost, and of course pinning it to a wall somewhere does not count as subtle. So for the purposes of telling the universe what anyone needs to know should they attempt to occupy these premises for any significant amount of time, I’ll just lay it out here in the nicest way I can imagine.

Welcome, Tenants!

If you are reading this, you have been granted a visiting or tenure-track professorship at the college. Tenure-track professors, congratulations! Enjoy the next six years toward tenure as you acclimate to campus and try to find a modicum of time to work on your research, because remember the school has an open-door policy and our students are very involved! Visiting professors, know that the administration appreciates your hard work and they expect you to be dedicated for the one or two years they’re willing to employ you. Enjoy your time here!

Now then, about this house. This lovely Cape Cod structure was originally built on 2×3 hardwood, and isn’t it great that they’ve kept it intact for the most part? Don’t worry about that bulging wall on the stairwell to the second floor—if you don’t bother it, we’re sure it won’t bother you! On your first walkthrough of the property, be sure to check out the small hand print in concrete next to the garage; little Helen is now 82 years old and still likes to stop by from time to time, so don’t be surprised if you receive a visit from her! But Helen doesn’t have the only lasting touch around the house. Up in the back bedroom you’ll notice the ceiling plaster is well, plastered with doodles from another young girl named Paula! Paula clearly had an affection for California, and the Olympics! Paula also left several lovely games of Tic Tac Toe on the ceiling for visitors to ponder. That Paula!

Yes, this house has a lot of history. You can see some of it in the upstairs hallway where not one, not two, not three, but four layers of wallpaper are revealed in the corner, under the peeling oil paint! Washingtonians sure do like to gaze upon their ancestry since Lewis & Clark passed through a little more than 100 years ago. One hundred years! That’s almost mind-boggling!

There are a few things you should know about residing in this house, because homes with this much character have a few special needs. Anything worth doing in life requires effort, right? Right!

1. The refrigerator emits a thin stream of water down the back, behind the shelves, which slowly pools under the crisper drawers. The college maintenance staff assure all tenants that this is the intended design of the appliance; that’s why it comes with its own flat Gladware container. Be sure to dump out the water on a regular basis, unless you want the refrigerator to self-clean the two feet of floor in front of it. It will do this by overflowing the bottom of the unit and spilling out through the seal of the door. Also note that as the rear of the unit is much colder than the front, your Gladware Capture SystemTM may freeze over. Simply bang the Gladware Capture SystemTM against the sink and release the ice, then return it to its place against the refrigerator wall.
2. When bathing, be sure to keep the water level lower than the overflow hole near the drain, as there may or may not be a seal to keep the water inside the plumbing system. Water that bypasses a seal will fall directly onto the subfloor, and from there, into your kitchen, anywhere from the electric stove top clear over to the refrigerator and kitchen entrance. Baths with up to 8 inches of water are safe to enjoy. So enjoy your own personal hygiene!
3. Your unit comes equipped with a fully functioning fireplace and chimney. Do note that during the time you want to relax with a fire, you should shut the heating ducts on either side of the fireplace. Otherwise these ducts will disturb the air flow near the fireplace and you may be subject to clouds of smoke and ash. We have not asked college maintenance about this but we are sure they would respond that this is an intended design feature of the fireplace unit and not anything requiring their attention. They would however prefer you observe a four-foot distance from the fireplace at all times, including placing your furniture outside this boundary, as well as your toddlers and pets. Better safe than burned!
4. Speaking of the heating ducts, do note that you should only have a maximum of three open at any time in order to heat small spaces optimally. Should your feet get cold, know that you may stand next to the vent in the kitchen, as this is a mere three feet from the top of the boiler in the basement below and always emits pleasant heat.
5. The garage in your backyard comes equipped with a locking door and garage door that you should feel free to open and close manually. It also has a cat door so that any random rodent can make its home in or near your garage when the summer heat kicks in or when it is very cold in winter. You may also notice several hornet’s nests in the garage eaves; these are normal, but the college will supply you with hornet spray if you request it.
6. Remember that today’s appliances use more power than in years past, so operating too many items at once, like the microwave and the toaster, may cause a circuit breaker to switch off. This may become quite inconvenient, as there is no apparent circuit box anywhere on the property, and trust us, we have looked high and low for it. Fortunately the house does seem to reset blown fuses automatically. Like about the bubbly wall, we don’t ask too many questions, and you shouldn’t, either!
7. Conveniently located right outside your kitchen window is the college recycling center. A project of several seniors who graduated many years ago now, it was originally intended to serve the entire Walla Walla community, but they may have bitten off a little too much to chew! Such idealists, those seniors! Now the college aims to serve just the local college community, which it has communicated to the greater city population by writing an announcement on the college email list and via a small sign on the front of the building that when open, no one can see. Do take the time to get to know your local recyclers, who will stop by all day and night with their clattering bottles and plastic. It’s a great way to meet people! Also, when they leave the Union-Bulletin in stacks to blow all over your lawn, know that this is an intended design feature of the college recycling center. We all fare better when we read and support our local newspapers!

Have a great year!

I’ve seen more wineries in the last week than in all of the previous weeks I’ve been in Walla Walla. It wasn’t a lack of interest in drinking wine, really, so much as a lack of interest in standing around feeling like a fraud who knows nothing about wine. And I’m pretty sure that I know more than nothing about it—I know some of the vintages out there, I know which are my favorites, like Malbec and Pinot Noir, and which I can’t even pretend to drink, like Riesling. I even know I like California styled Pinots better than French style ones, but my intermediate knowledge pretty much ends there. For living in a winery town, I’m betting I fall in the bottom third of the resident population, somewhere above Bud Light with Lime drinker, but well, well below somineler. I’m a second or third floor tenant in the wine-consuming office tower.

So it was with a jaundiced eye—get it, cirrhosis of the liver after drinking too much—that I traipsed out to a few wineries with our friend Jody, of the beer boot fame. When I say a “few,” I mean 12. One dozen wineries in one week. There was no, unfortunately for us, baker’s dozen “bonus” winery. I suppose we could have gone to more, but Jody’s wine shipper boxes had filled up and she became loathe to entertain the notion of buying a quarter of 100 bottles. Twenty-four bottles she was fine with, but twenty-five was just right out, apparently. I appreciate a woman with good boundaries.

The wine buying experience, for me at least, is a strange combination of luxury and annoyance, pleasure and pretension. I can’t think of anything else that comes close, except playing a round of golf after vying for a decent tee time. At least I think that experience is comparable, I’ve only done the latter once, when I was 15. My point is that while I like wine, I don’t necessarily like it standing next to strangers who are also there to taste wine and who are incontrovertibly better at getting the wine pourer’s attention than I am. So I wind up standing around with an empty glass, obviously not looking Seattleish enough to convince the staff that I’m ready to buy a case of their best red table wine. This leaves me wanting for something to distract me, like pretending to see the Winery Dogs of Walla Walla book for the first time ever, or clearing out my glass with the perfect tiny dab of water.

It reminds me a wee bit of high school in that jockeying for position to be cool enough way, that complete concern about one’s image that is really about insecurity and being frightened the wrong person will notice one’s lack of coolness. Because then it will be broadcast to all of one’s peers, and then one is simply Done For. I keep waiting for the moment when the Porsche-driving older guy with his rather young friends will turn to me and laugh in my face. It hasn’t happened yet, but I think I’ve dodged a bullet or two.

One winery on the Oregon side of the Walla Walla Valley line absolutely ignored Susanne and me several months ago, starting from one iota after they realized that we were locals. It was the snub at the dance; I could see the other patrons laughing it up, throwing their heads back, tiny tastes of wine rattling in their glasses, calling in orders for two and three cases, while I stood at the bar on the other side of the room, wondering how to make the quietest exit. As revenge, I tell people not to bother going to Zerba winery.

Walking through the wine industry with Jody, however, I had the best strategy. The girl can talk some wine. With her as the main distraction, we didn’t have any trouble making it through the flights of bottles. They could smell the money on her; it smoldered in her pocket and wafted to their wine-selling noses. Everywhere we went—L’Ecole and Cougar Crest, K, Spring Valley, Trust, I mean everywhere—she marched right in and started asking questions, started tasting, started exclaiming. There was no shrinking to this flower, and they ate it up.

I witnessed a number of excited exchanges and disagreements about wine. Whether there was a cherry on the finish, whether this beat the 2007 Dom. du Vieux Telegraphe Chateauneuf-du-Pape (note: it did not. Very little beats the 2007 Dom. du Vieux Telegraphe Chateauneuf-du-Pape, according to Jody). These were conversations 40 feet over my head. But who cared, I was getting pours! I tasted and spit, savoring when I could and moving on quickly when the wine didn’t suit me. Jody would become more and more excitable over the course of the day, until we all noted that we could use a nap.

I realized that walking into a winery with insecurity was like mounting a stallion cloaked in one’s own sense of fear. Neither experience would go well from that point. I didn’t need to worry about my class status in the winery, nor what I was projecting, I just needed to engage with the staff and enjoy the experience.

This is why having visitors from out of town is a good thing. Jody was just keeping it real.

I watch Hoarders, even as I wonder what I’m watching or why I find someone else’s obsession viewable. One episode and I was interested; two and I was rather well past curious; three and the fascination had taken hold. One of the things that I ponder with regard to hoarding are the kinds of reasons and justifications the hoarders supply for their accumulation of things and/or animals. To a layperson like myself, these look like the following:

• I’m going to do/make something with that
• I’m going to give this to someone someday
• If I just fix it it’ll be great/priceless/beautiful
• I couldn’t let it go to waste/be unloved
• I don’t want to forget the memory this reminds me of

It’s this last one that I personally understand the best. It’s resonant with me because I push myself through life so hard at times that I fear I’ll lose part of what made a previous moment important. More upsetting is thinking that I can lose memories of people who aren’t around anymore, so things they owned or pictures of them take on meaning they probably shouldn’t have. I’m fine, overall, not accumulating objects d’art or otherwise, and I go through regular periods of casting off, but there is a certain pain involved in packing up everything I own into cardboard boxes and seeing my material possessions disassembled and depersonalized.

My grandfather’s tin drinking cup is in there somewhere. My Joy of Cooking signed by my mother with the little happy face she always leaves at the ends of her notes. The oil painting my uncle gave my father, that hung in his office for 20 years. Wedding photos, taken a scant two years ago. I have an attachment to these things, and I can only scratch at the most immediate reasons why, suspecting my emotions go to places I can’t actually recall anymore.

This very minute Susanne is asking me what I plan to do with the 20 or so dead batteries that are in a marble container on a bookshelf in our living room. Fortunately for me I ran across our alkaline battery charger upstairs in my office. I jump suddenly to the hoarding justification #3. She nods her head, listening to me, her face expressing a wisdom I won’t have for another decade or so. I swear I got rid of a lot of stuff in DC, before we moved out here. I use my Walla Walla public library card faithfully and on a regular basis, so I have accumulated a minimum of new books.

To make myself feel better about storing dead batteries in my living room, I proudly announce that I will go through my mass market books and toss out the ones I don’t need to pack. In terms of volume, one mass market is the equivalent of those 20 batteries. In terms of weight, however, I’d need 50 or 60 of them. And in terms of guilt I’m betting I need to toss roughly 125. I am a large fount of guilt.

I hate moving. Spaces are meant to have things in them, not sit vacuous, echoing sounds as small as my breathing. Though I don’t want to sit in a space filled with clutter, I enjoy having objects around me that reflect my interests, my people, my past.

The old VHS tapes I made of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Secret of My Succes$, and Ruthless People, well, I’m not sure what those say about me.

This second year here in Walla Walla has seen the visits of several friends and family, including Susanne’s parents, my Mom, my sister and her two daughters, my friend Michael, and now our friend Jody. They have tasted from the chalice of the town of many waters, and they have enjoyed it thoroughly. Especially Jody. Nobody we’ve brought here has been as excited about the wine sellers and vineyards as Jody.

Jody is also a fan of the German tradition of the glass beer boot. There really is nothing like repeating a favorite event from one’s college days to bring back the nostalgia for that time, so when Susanne and I stumbled across a boot for sale in Victoria, British Columbia, we of course purchased it, telling ourselves it would make a perfect graduation gift for our friend. The catch was that she would need to trek across the country to get it from us. We figured we would see her last summer, but then she was too embroiled in finishing her dissertation. And as I hear it, that needs to happen before this graduation thingamabob.

Jody walked with her fellow Ph.D. recipients in DC last week, and the ink scarcely had a chance to dry before she was on the prerequisite three flights to get here. We had the boot set up in the dining room, waiting patiently and lovingly for its new owner. She hugged it like a toddler loves a teddy bear. And we told her we’d venture out to the Laht Neppur brewery in Waitsburg, about 20 minutes away to the east. We hoped the Irish beer would be okay in the German boot, not that it bothered us personally, as we are not purists.

The next day we, with another professor from Susanne’s college, made the journey, and unlike other trips to this town, we did not see any anti-abortion protesters. Slackers. The weather gets a little nice and they all drop their political mischief. Well fine, I don’t need them anyhow.

I’d called ahead to see if the brewery would be okay filling up a two liter boot for us, and they actually sounded thrilled. As we walked in the door, boot in hand, a couple of people from behind the bar clapped excitedly, as if I’d just told a kindergarten class we were about to have birthday cake. At least that’s how I recall responding to such news when I was 5. We needed to taste a few of the dozen or so kinds of beer they make to see what should fill the boot. I mean, drinking this thing is a commitment, one wants to really like the beer inside. We opted for a fruity hefeweisen. So now we’re really out there: a German style, Irish made beer in a German boot. I asked them to play a little U2 to keep things balanced. Because a little Bono goes a long way.

Jody told us the rules: once the boot is picked up, it cannot be put back down until it is empty. You can drink as long as you want, but can not stop and start. You must thwack the boot with your finger before and after you drink, and you must pay if you’re the second to last drinker of the boot. So we ordered some pub food and started passing the boot.

The owners were enthralled with our level of interest in drinking their beer, so much so that the brewmaster came out from the back to take pictures of us. The customers were happy for us too; I don’t think there’s been that degree of excitement in a while, but then again, I don’t spend every night in the place, so perhaps I’ve missed the children’s birthday parties.

We drank and drank and scarfed down a pizza that at that moment, seemed like the best pizza in the world. It could have been rancid and freezer-frosted, but in actuality, I think it was rather tasty. Finally, we were getting near to the end of the boot. I looked at what was left in it, something close to a full pint, and took a breath. Jody, the veteran boot drinker of our bunch, was next after me, and I didn’t want her to show me up. I looked around the room and noticed that everyone was noticing me. All of the people at the table but me had doctorates, but I was the big man, and suddenly I felt like I was being measured in terms of masculinity. I didn’t want to weigh in on the Pee Wee Herman end of the scale, I wanted Lou Ferigno. And I hated that I didn’t want to be teased for not finishing this thing, so I tilted the boot back and finished it. Woo hoo! We cheered. Jody snapped a picture. And from the other table, an older man and his wife clapped, but then he totally deflated my ego by saying, almost under his breath but just loud enough for me to discern:

“A real man would have drunk a boot of porter.”

Bam. And then I wondered if this is why men walk around being macho and masculine—because they don’t want someone to say that they’re not. I didn’t see that guy drinking a boot. And why should I care what he thinks about my manliness? And who is a real man, anyway? I stuck in the back of my mind that I should set a different priority in those moments, not that this would have changed my behavior. For I would have killed the boot in any case, but I didn’t need to kill it because strangers might tease me if I didn’t.

We went ahead and ordered another boot, figuring that four of us could handle a liter of beer each. It was clearly the end of the semester for the two college professors, who could potentially have put their own students to shame with their capacity. And though I hadn’t drunk that much in a long time, I had a blast, and we enjoyed our indoor picnic table. For though this is wine country, there are definitely a few places for beer drinkers, and we deeply appreciate them.

Wagon Man!

Walla Walla has been quite the setting for our little 2-person play on adaptation, struggle, ego, relationships, and personality. Living between a house of students who practiced the Save Ferris version of Come On Eileen for a whole academic year with nary any improvement in tempo or pitch was not something we’ll soon forget. Meeting the “wagon man” as he carefully jettisoned his recycling across the alley from our kitchen window will stick with us for a long time. And who doesn’t remember the bathtub water raining in our kitchen for a 3-month period, star of the film I directed, Holy Shit, It’s Raining in My Kitchen? Good times, all.

But our time in The Liar House is drawing to a close now. The nicked-up doors and baseboards, mushy plaster walls, cobweb-infested basement with illegal bedroom, we’re saying goodbye to them all. We’re only sorry we never found the electrical panel so we could meet properly.

But goodbye, hidden, invisible electrical panel! Goodbye, leaky main water valve! Goodbye, broken dryer the maintenance guy said wasn’t his responsibility! Goodbye, strange plots of bare dirt that the lawnmower guy insisted on spraying for weeds! Goodbye, ducks fornicating on our lawn! Goodbye, many, many students who walked across the same lawn, every day, multiple times a day, to and from class! Goodbye, strange cat who walked into our living room last spring! Goodbye, never shoveled street, even after 30 inches of snow came down from the sky and buried us inside! Goodbye, weirdly reappearing hornet’s nests that keep freaking me out! Goodbye to all of you!

Hello, road trip! And someday, HELLO dishwasher!