Idol Wanna-bes

I misread my American Idol wristband. It didn't say, "I'm with crazy girl." It said, "I'm with not-crazy girl." Birdie wasn't weird 6 a.m. Hula-Hooper. At 6 a.m., Hula-Hooper broke loose from her section of the American Idol street cattle pen to climb the steps to city hall and, on its veranda, perform her Ode to Idol. As she wasn't singing, I would have thought her to be ordinary St. Louis weird, except an American Idol logo covered the front of her long denim wrap skirt. A few bored souls filmed her. I wasn't that bored. I was eyeing Angel Wing. Not because she was winged at dawn, and possibly a vampire, but because she lacked cowboy boots. Nearly everyone got the message, "Let's dress like Carrie Underwood!!!!!" Pepto Girl overdosed on the message. Her cowboy boots were pink. Her skirt was pink, and possibly feathered. Her blouse was pink. And her blonde hair had a big pink bow, which got me wondering why her hair wasn't pink. There's a lot of pink hair in the Idol crowd, and some pink tights, and one six-foot Banana. The Birdie Bunch ignored Pepto Girl, Angel Wings, Hula-Hooper, the Banana and a bunch of really bad practicing "singers." Decked out in tie-dye, they were on Ryan Watch, which brings me to the lie that Birdie told. At 7 a.m., Ryan Seacrest whizzed by on a golf cart. The Birdie Bunch squealed, except for Birdie. She blinked. I blinked, too. Neither of us saw him. But we said we did. In Idol-wanna-be land, Ryan sightings are, well, Ryan sightings. No one worth their Idol salt blinks mid-Ryan. My ears survived, because Birdie didn't squeal; my bladder survived a huge, complimentary Red Bull without waking up any potty-dozers; and no one lost an eye. At 8 a.m., the Scottrade Center opened its doors. Wristbands intact, and tickets in hand, the Birdie Bunch and I, along with Pepto Girl, Angel Wings and everyone else walked in.

American Idol

My purple tyvek wristband screams, "I'm with crazy girl." Tomorrow, at 5 a.m., my wristband will get me into the American Idol auditions. To be precise, I will be a very short piece of the crowd of thousands waiting to get into the Scottrade Center at 8 a.m. Event organizers advised us to be there three hours early for extra fun. Yesterday, Birdie registered to audition. That's when she received a blue contestant wristband and I, along with four of her friends, received our purple ones. If only she had a friend who looks old enough to be her chaperoning mom. My hopes for tomorrow are simple:
No rain. I'm too short to get poked by an umbrella, but three out of four Birdie friends are tall enough to lose an eye.
No flu outbreak. Coughing and sneezing trickles down to the short person level. Maybe I do need an umbrella.
No free coffee. I don't want to wake up whomever sleeps in the porto-potty. Neither do I want to drop my American Idol ticket down the hole.
No Ryan Seacrest Look-Alikes. If Birdie and her friends blow out my eardrums with "OMG, it's Ryan," please let it be the real deal.
No Regrets. My Birdie can sing. Crazy girl also has a talent for recognizing a really good time. No matter how tomorrow works out, I anticipate no regrets about being the Birdie chaperone. Unless, maybe, someone loses an eyeball.

Not A Giant Red Party Bus

I think Big Guy thought the Greyhound bus line and I were having too much fun. So Monday, he and his work buddies loaded up a coach bus of their own to head south. He says, they were looking at plots. And I'm sure they checked out a few fields, as surprisingly, for Big Guy and his research intense friends, looking at plants grow is fun. Between plot stops, I don't think they buried their noses in scholarly journals or field data. I've already seen a brief bit of video from the B.B. King Museum in Memphis loaded onto Facebook by one traveler. No documentation of educational statues of blues/jazz legends, rather the real thing (although not B.B. himself) jamming on stage. The video was too grainy to see if Big Guy or anyone else I know leapt onto the stage to jam. But as the band sounded darn good, I suspect there was no audience assist. Big Guy has been mostly silent during this two-day southern swing. He called once to say his phone broke. He didn't say he tossed it off a two-story high balcony onto concrete below. Not that THAT has ever happened. He returns home today. I'll pry out a few more details. But already I've heard what I want to hear. Big Guy, according to Big Guy, claimed a seat close to the front of the bus. That would be among the "well-behaved." Riding Greyhound confirmed that while back-of-the-bus riders may (or may not) graduate high school, there's a reason why they sit as far from the front as possible.

When Books Go Camping

My weekend of camping reminds me why I'm such a fan of books found at the used book store. I took three paperbacks with me--Running With Scissors; Eat, Pray, Love; and Clan Of The Cave Bear. The first two were ones I'd never read, while the third one I read long ago and thought I might want to revisit. I dug out Clan Of The Cave Bear as my first read, and realized I'm not the same sharp-eyed person who first read it. The print is tiny, the book is long and my weekend wasn't. Next, I started in on Running With Scissors. Midway through, I realized I didn't like it. Apparently, only really dysfunctional people run with scissors. I can't lend this book to my friends. I'd have to hide the scissors. With two books down, my third and final choice was Eat, Pray, Love. I took this book to the St. Francis River. I  fashioned a cozy reading nook on a boulder in the middle of the wet, but not very big, river. I propped Eat, Pray, Love between my knees and belly and began to read. As the pages started to curl, I figured out my swimsuit was wet so I tucked a towel underneath the bottom edge of the book. That worked great. Then on the way back from the river, a drink leaked inside my bag. Critics have described Eat, Pray, Love as absorbent reading. They're right. So was Big Guy's heavy, clunky library book that I was also carting in my bag. His book is nearly a month overdue. Now it'll go back to the library with water damage. For the moment, Big Guy is not worried. His library book is not checked out on his library card. Birdie will be the one apologizing; paying the fine; and perhaps, paying for damages. Chances are Big Guy will wish he carried his own book back from the river. As for my paid for, gently used books, they remain a camper's bargain. With its wrinkled pages Eat, Pray, Love will remind me of the fun I had not catching fish; Running With Scissors will become tinder on some future trip; and sometime soon, Clan Of The Cave Bear will be read again by me or snagged by Birdie, who most likely won't share it with her dad.

Tequila And The Chicken Wing

Big Guy forgets Tequila is a dog. After dinner, he pushes back from the table and invites Tequila to sit in his lap. The pint-sized pooch loves stretching her nose close to whatever is left on the table. Not that she ever gets a bite. Tequila has bad knees and we've been warned keep weight off her. So sniffing is as good as it gets for Tequila. Until Sunday happened. Big Guy and Daisy had the house to themselves for dinner and decided to make it "picnic night" in the den. They laid a spread of store-bought fried chicken and cole slaw on the coffee table. Big Guy returned to the kitchen to fetch the iced tea; Daisy focused on finding the perfect t.v. show; Tequila grabbed a chicken wing. She dashed into her crate with Big Guy hot on her heels. Big Guy loves his chicken wings. So does Tequila. Sadly for Tequila, Big Guy hauled her out of the crate and pried the wing loose. Sadly for Big Guy, Daisy was home. So, no wiping off Tequila spit and pretending the theft never happened. Maybe lessons were learned: Don't encourage Tequila around food; don't leave Daisy in charge of the chicken and the remote; and don't run into a dead-end with your treasure.

Bye-bye Birdie, Hello Car

When I found out Birdie would be gone for a week, I told her she could go before I knew where she was going or with whom she'd be traveling. That wasn't important. What really matters is that with Birdie gone, we return to being a three-car, three-person household. I am too old and slow to beat the girls racing for car keys. And I have pitiful excuses for needing a car. Daisy drives to summer school; Birdie drives to work; and Big Guy drives to escape a house full of loud women and louder cats. Thank you Birdie for flitting to Arkansas. For one blissful week, I am not walking; I am not waiting for rides; I am not catching the bus. Should one week turn into two, chances are, that will be o.k.

People Of

The Devil In The Details

I called the tow company
  to find the car.
  No, it hadn't been towed.
Maybe it was stolen?
Thank goodness I waited
  to call the police.
Turns out, the car was where
  I told Birdie to leave it. 
The car was parked
  in the Jimmy John's
    parking lot.
But not at the Jimmy John's
  I knew existed. 
My hair turns gray
  and my heart flutters,
even when Birdie does
  exactly what she is supposed to.

What Daisy Wrote

Dairy Queen Birthday Girl

My guess was that Dairy Queen is older than Mom. I can't envision her agreeing to be born without the certainty of a small cone of Dairy Queen vanilla ice cream ordered up. Turns out, I was wrong. According to my source for everything Wikipedia, Dairy Queen is younger than Mom by a couple of years. Nonprofitable years, I'm sure. To celebrate Mom's 75th birthday, she and I road-tripped through Georgia. We kicked off things with her birthday party at Aunt Atlanta's digs. It was the biggest party Mom ever had and that was without dancing on the table. We stopped to visit Sis at the lake. Right on cue, her extended clan ooh'd, ahh'd and begged her to bake a Red Velvet Cake, obviously they don't know about my cake baking history. And we tracked down Bro to run our figurative white gloves over his multi-million dollar construction project. We swung by houses we used to live in, picked up some free pecans and argued over how low the gas gauge could fall. I won as the car never ran out of gas. One of us bought a peculiar bird house and tried a grits martini. Mom doesn't drink. One of us also ordered Wendy's French fries before noon and sprung for the cute key fob that allows for a free mini Frosty with purchase throughout the summer.  And every day was Dairy Queen Day.  I would order a chocolate-dipped vanilla ice cream cone; Mom would order a thoroughly modern Blizzard. She carefully made each bite of her treat last. I frantically tried to drive and gobble my ice cream before it melted. I have a lot left to learn from Mom, like when to drive and when not to. 

Royal For A Reason

Big Guy nixed the book-and-chair fishing plan. In its place, he handed me a fishing rod. He had one, too. In twenty minutes, he caught three fish. I was busy, also. I lost three fishing lures, tangled my line around the reel twice and caught a weed on the bank. On the drive home, the tip of the newest fishing rod inexplicably got crunched in the minivan's automatic window.  The best news: My fishing license is valid until February 2012.

Royal We

We are fishing this weekend. Big Guy will pull together the fishing gear, whatever that is. I will think about which hat to wear. Big Guy will figure out where we are fishing. I will find a level spot for my chair. And, I'll determine which book to read first. Big Guy will bait the hooks, cast out the rods and hand one to me. I'll try to juggle the rod and book without dropping either. Although, if one has to fall, it won't be the book. Big Guy will tell me when something might be nibbling. I'll tell him if I need another cold drink. Somehow we will muddle our way through. If we are successful, and Big Guy follows through with whatever nasty stuff is done to fish after they're caught, then he will cook the fish and we will eat. I hope Big Guy knows he gets to wash the dishes. That's where we fishing together stops. I'll need time to finish my book or start another one.

Bus Drivers

While a bus driver is a bus driver, not all drivers are the same. When I rode the bus to Carrington Junior High in Durham, NC, I discovered that the teenager who drove our bus wasn't a bit like the soldiers who had driven my elementary school bus at Fort Shafter, HI. For the record, I sat near the front of the junior high bus and the party was in the back. Our driver's only problem with the party was that he could only watch the fun in the rear view mirror. That still left plenty of time to stop the bus long enough to steal construction signs from the side of the road. In contrast, the soldiers who drove the school bus at Fort Shafter followed the rules and never revealed to us what the nasty words meant that were scrawled onto the bench at the bus stop. For them, every day on school bus duty was one less day spent dodging booby-traps in Vietnamese jungles. With all of that bus experience, I wasn't surprised to find that Greyhound bus drivers aren't cookie-cutter copies. Lady in Red--the prison blind dater--groaned when she realized who was driving our bus from St. Louis to Nashville. "He's slow," she said. And she was right. We'd pull into a stop; Slow Driver would suggest that everyone not leaving the bus, remain on the bus; then the entire back third of the bus, including the two "service" dogs, would pile off for a lengthy smoke break. That changed when I switched buses in Nashville. Mr. Efficiency set the rules. When his bus stopped, the only passengers who left the bus were ones not coming back. Except for one 10-minute smoke break. When 10 minutes passed, Mr. Efficiency closed the door and hit the gas. "If you're not on the bus, raise your hand," he said. By then, the "service" dogs were on some other bus. So were the Amish. Good thing as it was plain that no last-minute dog sniff, no bonnet crisis and no half-finished cigarette comes between Mr. Efficiency and his route. A bus change in Chattanooga left me with Miss I'm In Charge. As I handed her my ticket, I advised Miss I'm Charge that my checked bag would need to be unloaded at the very next stop. She told me to mind my own business concerning how the bus got loaded. Then she glared at me when I pointed out my luggage to the bus loader so he'd know it was coming off the bus soon. Twenty minutes later the bus arrived in Cleveland. I got off the bus. Then the whole bus waited as Miss I'm In Charge searched three compartments before finding my bag. Like drivers, bus riders come in all shapes and sizes. I was Miss I'm In Charge's Know-It-All Passenger. But I also go by Smugly Satisfied. I wore my I Told You So grin while Miss I'm In Charge dug through the bags to find the one that should have been loaded last.