Kristen Visits Chicago

Or, the Night We Adopted a Young Female Vagabond, Introduced Unborn Wrigley to His Namesake Landmarks, and I Threw Out My Back for the Sake of a Perfect Photo.

October 2011

Chicago, IL

PANCAKES! All Keri wanted for lunch before she started her new job as a shop girl at a roller derby supply store was PANCAKES! The plan was for the three of us (Becky, Keri and me) to load up on pancakes and coffee before Becky and I dropped Keri at work on the way to O’Hare to collect our fellow California girlfriend Kristen.

            The first hiccup came in the form of an ill-timed stop at the Golden Nugget 24-hour pancake house near our apartment. That’s right, the time when we needed PANCAKES was the time when they decided to close for their quarterly 3-hour range cleaning. This place is literally only closed for 12 hours a YEAR and we happened to come during one of those times.

With no time to find another pancake place before work, Keri settled for a tunafish sandwich. Rather unsatisfying when you’re hankering for pancakes. Yech. After dropping Keri at her new gig, Becky and I continued our mission for delicious discs of pan-fried batter and were not disappointed by the International House of Pancakes-- USA Branch, Chicago Chapter.

Hiccup #2 appeared in the form of torrential rains that began as soon as we set out on what is usually a 40 minute drive to O’Hare. Today, it was two hours of soggy stop-and-go traffic before we reached our pregnant friend and another two hours until we were home. Oh, did I not mention that Kristen was pregnant? You may have heard that pregnancy is rather uncomfortable and can cause nausea as well as frequent urination. So after a five-hour flight, our beloved but acutely anxiety-prone friend had to spend another two hours cramped in a moving vehicle without even a tiny, awkward airplane bathroom in which to relieve herself.

Kristen, me and Wrigleyfetus on the Blue Line

Kristen is a trooper and that night she and I decided to hop on the “El” and go wherever the night took us (limited to stops on the Blue Line towards Forest Park.) We came upon a young woman studying the CTA map and being the (sometimes awkwardly so) friendly Californians that we are, we asked her if she needed help getting to wherever she was going? She graciously accepted our help, the extent of which was confirming that yes, this was in fact the Blue Line (I had only been in Chicago for two months and I only knew two lines--Red and Blue.) On our ride to Downtown Chicago we chatted with Maddie and found that she was only in Chicago for the night and that she had taken the wrong bus from Indiana.

Our unassuming victim

Maddie had just graduated college and her graduation gift from her parents was a 40-day unlimited Greyhound pass. Can you say “cool parents”? She was trekking solo across the country, couch-surfing and hostel-staying, hoping that at least one of the stops along the way would grab her enough for her to want to make it her first post-college home. Chicago was, in fact, on her itinerary, but she wasn’t supposed to be there for another couple of nights. She did manage to find a hostel rather last minute but she needed to kill some time and we were delighted to take her along on our sightseeing adventure

We ended up in Millenium Park at the famed “bean” sculpture, a perfect photo-op spot. Kristen has a way of getting her companions to do some crazy shit, and, caught up in her Earth-mama, die-hard Cubs fan (did I mention her then-fetus was already named Wrigley?), photographer spirit, we ended up with this:

Chicago L O V E

Indeed, as a former cheerleader I gleefully posed my friends into their line-based letters and cheerfully volunteered to be the “O.”

“O” shit!!! My already temperamental back did not appreciate being painfully contorted, on the cement, in the cold. I paid for that for a few days, but that photo: four old friends in a city they all love. That photo--and the memories of that night--will be with me forever.

The Legend of The Ladies Beth: Vampire Vandalizers, Part the First

My aunt and I crack each other up. We both think the other is hilarious but we seem to be the only person, respectively, who is sophisticated enough to appreciate the other's humor. Or that's what we tell each other and ourselves. We love to share funny stories (it has actually become a running joke that my aunt is always telling me "Remind me to tell you the story about..." And when I do, somehow we end up distracted, unable to backtrack, and the reminder goes unheeded until the next time she thinks to tell me "Remind me to tell you the story about..." and so on.)

I told my aunt about "There's no time!!" and brought her to the inside of the joke. She loved it and decided that we needed was to have an adventure that involved yelling "There's no time!!" and running like maniacs away from some kind of danger. And soon enough, an opportunity presented itself.

Zip Codee Doo Dah

I was visiting my aunt and uncle at their house in Baton Rouge (I was living in New Orleans at the time and she was in the process of selling her Baton Rouge home and remodeling her dream-home, a vintage "dollhouse" in Lafayette.) My cousin Collette had been living in Lafayette attending college (Geaux Cajuns) and my aunt and uncle spent a lot of time driving the hour back and forth between the two cities.

One common trait that has bonded my aunt and I is our shared nocturnal nature. When left to our own devices and without a set schedule, our sleep/wake cycles almost completely flip to the opposite of what's considered "normal" by "employed" people. 

My uncle is one such "employee." Around 10 pm on Friday we decided it was the perfect time to get out of the house and see a movie. I was planning to look up movie times on my smartphone on the way to the local cineplex. My uncle's response when hearing our plan was, "Now?? It's 10 o'clock at night." Normies, I tell you what. Harshing our vampire mellow.

We headed out to the theater and I punched in the zip code my aunt provided to find movie times. I can't remember what movie we were planning to see but it was playing within the next half hour at the nearest theater.

We parked in a space close to the entrance and walked just a few steps to the main doors. There was no one at the ticket window. It seemed odd but we figured they just weren't that busy and we would be able to purchase tickets inside. To our surprise, the doors were locked. My aunt and I looked quizzically at one another. We waved at an employee and he came to the door, unlocked it and stuck his head out.

"Hi, can I help you with something?"

"Um, yes," I replied. "We wanted to...see a movie?"

"I'm sorry ma'am" [This is the South. You're a "ma'am" at any age]

"I'm sorry, but we're closed."

"How can you be closed if you have showings at 10:30?"

"No ma'am. Our last showing was before 9 pm. We don't ever have showings any later than that."

Aunt Mary Beth and I walked back to the car, confused to say the least. Suddenly she started laughing so hard she gave herself a coughing fit. "What?" I asked. She shook her head and waved her hand at me as she continued to cough. When she finally caught her breath she snorted out,

"Elizabeth. I gave you the zip code to the house in Lafayette."

Gong.

We both started cracking up. We hopped back into the car and after some discussion, decided to try the next-closest theater. We got on the interstate while I inputted the correct zip code. The next-closest theater was also done for the night. "Should we try the one off Corporate?" "May as well." Same thing. No movies after 10 pm.

Over the River and Through the Swamp

By this time we were wound up from laughing at our mistake and had already been driving from 20 minutes and were approaching the point where we'd have to either exit the interstate or continue on across the Mississippi River bridge, to the West Bank. I had an idea. I had a wonderful, terrible idea.

"Let's go to Lafayette! We'll surprise Collette; it'll be so much fun. We can sleep on her couches and have a girls day tomorrow."

After a call to Uncle Pat to inform him we were taking his car for the weekend, we drove gleefully, tickled by our sponteneity.

Remember how we said Collette would be sooo excited to see us? Well, it turns out that 21 year old college students with handsome boyfriends and fun-loving sorority sisters usually have plans on a Friday night, and those plans don't include your mom and your weird cousin showing up unannounced and crashing your pre-game. Collette revised her plans so that we could stay at the house and she could not have to hang out with us. I don't blame her one bit. However, she should have known that leaving the two of us alone, high on our own self-congratulations, might lead to us getting into some trouble. Bwahahaha.

To be continued...

The Legend of the Ladies Beth, Prologue

In order to tell the story of There's No Time! The Midnight Vandalization Perpetrated by Elizabeth and Mary Beth, I need to tell the story of There's No Time! Oli, Patti, and Liz Narrowly Escape With Their Lives.

We had just seen Hostel at the theater. and, while certainly cringe-worthy (Ahhhh ah ah achilles!), it wasn't sleep-with-the-lights-on creepy or disturbing. By the end of the movie, when the protagonist (?) was running the gang of kids down with the van, it had devolved from torture-porn to slapstick.

But I guess the atmosphere of the film left us a little unsettled; a bit on edge. We returned to Olivia's house (an older, generally creaky home) and sat around shooting the shit in low voices, so as not to disturb her grandmother who was asleep in the adjacent room. Or so we thought. We suddenly heard a rusty knob turn. We heard the front bedroom door crrreeakk open. 

"Mama Olivia?" Olivia called out to her namesake abuela.

No response.

The three of us looked at each other, a little startled, but Patti suggested it probably just Stimpy, was one of Oli's several cats.

"Can Stimpy turn a doorknob?" I asked, hopefully.

We all stood slowly and crept towards the bedroom door, which was now ajar. Like in a Scooby-Doo cartoon, we stuck close together and moved in a single file. Olivia nudged the door open. Once again, she called out to her grandmother. Nothing. She pushed the door a little more to reveal an empty bedroom. No grandmothers, no cats. Naturally, our reaction was perfectly reasonable.

"Oh my god! It was a ghost! Let's get out of here!!"

I'm pretty sure that is verbatim dialogue from at least five Scooby-Doo episodes, but our collective nerves were wound tight from Hostel (of all things), and we tripped over each other trying to get out the front door of the house. Olivia snatched up her car keys and we flew towards the Mustang that was sitting in the driveway. She pressed the keyless entry and I was first to reach the passenger side door. I flung it open and began fiddling with the lever so I could jump in the back seat.

"There's no time!!!" Patti shrieked.

She pushed me into the front seat and jumped in next to me. Olivia started the car and we squealed out of her driveway with the passenger door hanging open.

After a few minutes of driving around, we calmed down, laughed ourselves silly and headed back to the "haunted" house. To this day, we don't know who or what opened that door, but we'll forever have "There's no time!!" It's our little inside joke. Welcome to our inside.

Pardon the delay

UPDATE: Writing about my aunt has been more difficult than I thought it would be. Please forgive my absence. And please continue to keep my aunt in your thoughts. She needs some help kicking cancer's ass.

We always dine "al fresco" if the weather allows. Here we are enjoying a pit stop on a road trip in 2007.

DETOUR AHEAD

Please hold on tight while we take a detour from our Route 66 adventure...

Everyone tells me I am a "mini-me" of my mom. Blonde hair, blue eyes, petite, with similar mannerisms. According to my brother we even walk up stairs in the same bobbing, bunny rabbit prance. In actuality, I am the spitting image of my father, and in turn his mother. But it wasn't until I really got to know, as an adult, my only aunt that I had a moment of "Ah...So THAT's where I come from."

My aunt and I are two peas in a pod. Partners in crime. Legends in our own minds. Best friends. I feel so lucky that I found a friend like her right there in my own family. Ain't that convenient?

My aunt and I are both named for my grandmother. We both love to "time travel," admire old houses, bargain shop, drink tea, nap, talk about our family history, laugh, nap again and laugh some more.

I'll be sharing some of my favorite stories of her and my adventures (and misadventures).

I hope they'll make you smile the way they make me smile.

Stay tuned for Elizabeth and Mary Beth: Chapter One: "The Vandalizers."

Hope you enjoy. And if you could send a prayer, positive thought, good energy or well wishes to my aunt and our family to help her get through a tough time.

Merci beaucoup. (My aunt is also a Francophile).

Day 2: Driving with my left foot

September 2, 2013

Start: Springfield, MO

End: Clinton, OK

Miles driven: 370.2

Trip Odometer: 919

Part 1: The Beauty of the Ozarks 

My right leg, my driving leg, is covered in a checkerboard of pain relief patches. I contemplate the sheer physical energy it must have taken for my grandpa to drive this same route in the days before power steering and seat belts, with two little kids in the back seat. Note to self: the Ozarks may be the most beautiful scenery in the United States. The vast fields on either side of the highway are littered with giant hay bales; they look like like splintered barrels laid on their sides. Low-hanging, white fluffy clouds look close enough that I could reach up through my car window and pinch of a tuft. I wonder what it would taste like? Probably better than the clouds in the city: pure air. My right hip aches. I bought a pack of Salon-Pas patches and every time I feel a new twinge I slap another one on. I think I am at about 8 right now.

The last time I drove through the Ozarks was almost exactly two years ago when on a whim, I decided to move from New Orleans to Chicago, but starting in California where my car had been living. I stopped in Northwest Arkansas to spend some time with a friend in Razorback Country. I took a day detour to Eureka Springs, quite possibly my favorite place I have ever been. 

Night One: Springfield, USA!

I had hoped to reach Tulsa by the end of my first day but my body just wasn't cooperating. I was awake and alert but my whole right leg ached and I didn't want to wear myself out so much that I wouldn't be able to drive a good distance--or at all-- the next day. I contacted my remote navigation lieutenant who assisted me in finding this weary traveler an inn for the night. I made it as far as Springfield, Missouri (the second Springfield I had been in that day. I am starting to understand why Matt Groening picked it.) I've been a Motel Sixer my whole life and I couldn't beat the $34.99 price, but come morning I felt the effects of the too-hard bed and the too-thin pillows. And so the next night I decided to cough up a little more cash so that I could sleep in comfort and soak in a nice bathtub.

That said, the night clerk at Motel 6 couldn't have been nicer,  the room was clean, and the TV worked. Also, thankfully, the lobby vending machine had all the essentials.

Another reason I decided not to continue staying at motels was that I did feel vulnerable that my room faced the parking lot and there was only my door and my window between myself and any would-be attackers. Even though I had a very believable decoy boyfriend in the front seat of my car (a Chicago friend graciously loaned me her late father's jacket and pair of her own flip-flops which could pass as men's. I asked her, "Who wears flip-flops with a khaki rain jacket with a plaid lining?" She replied "my dad." Touche.) I didn't want anyone (fellow hotel guests, random people at rest stops who might be casing the joint) to realize I was traveling alone. So in addition to the coat and shoes, I kept the passenger side clear and kept a drink in each cup-holder. I don't know if I fooled anyone, but then again, I am alive so I am just going to assume that it worked.