Borrowing a Library Book, or Down the Merry Trail to the Witch's House, Muah Ha Ha!

I just spent all morning trying to borrow a library book on my Kindle. 

I’ve borrowed books before, no problem.  But I had to put a hold on this one, and the email came that it was ready.  However, when I went to retrieve it, the library said I had no holds.  Hmmmm.  I called the library, who said that aha, you’ve been borrowing epub books heretofore.  This book was on Overdrive, and that I had to link my Kindle to Amazon. 

My Kindle said it was linked and registered and married and joined and other official unions with Amazon.  Amazon, spitting like an estranged spouse, said no way, never heard of you.

Hmmm.

When in doubt, call someone who can deal with modern techno-times.  I tend to be in the steam age, overheating, blowing gaskets, and running amok.  To tell you the truth, even steam is a bit advance.  Give me a wood stove.

So I got daughter on the phone.  Her pronouncement: “I’m telling Dad to never buy you any more technology for Christmas.  How can you not figure out iTunes?  A Kindle?  You have the worst luck with technology I’ve ever seen.”  She laughed when she said it.  I was not offended in the least.  It was true and at last someone was offering up well deserved pity.  

She was very helpful, and we finally figured out that I did not possess the Overdrive app which was required to get the books.  Why was that not something the library said in BIG LETTERS on their site?  Daughter said it was.  I sure couldn’t find where. 

Daughter said that everyone else seems to be able to walk down the techno trail, but somehow I always wind up at the witch’s house.  It’s true.  Technology appears so nice and appealing!  Let's get Mom this iTunes, she'll love it.  Or a Kindle.  Oh, look a candy house, let's go eat some.  Muah, ha, ha!!

When I was in the 6^th grade, Dad read in Sunset magazine that one simply must visit the Anza-Borrego desert in the spring and see the luxuriant cactus blooms.  The desert would be carpeted with flowers, it promised.

So off we went in the Chevy.  I was allowed to bring along my friend, Debbie. 

It was everything that Sunset promised.  Spectacular day that I long remembered after moving from San Diego to Illinois and struggling with transplant shock of cold weather.

I longed for the dry heat of the desert, the glorious cactus blooms, and friends from my former home, most of all Debbie.  I had a little cactus garden in the window of our Illinois house.  I’d stand there in the sun and sing my favorite songs from earlier days.  Someday I’d go back, I vowed.

Years later, when spring rolled around once more, I decided that I really must go back out to see the Anza-Borrego desert bloom.  It was after a particularly rainy winter and the newspapers were full of raves about the blossoming spring at the Anza-Borrego.  I loaded my parents and two girls into the car and off we went for a happy day.  La, la, la.

Driving along, I was determined to stop and see all the pretty sights.  A giant sign said: Cholla Gardens!

Yippee!  Cholla Gardens!  What might they be?  We pulled over, expecting a delightful walk.  Fortunately, my parents did not want to go as Dad couldn’t walk very well after his stroke.

The girls and I entered the “Cholla Gardens!”  Warning!  Warning!  Beware of inviting signs beckoning you to the Cholla Gardens.  Gardens, the sign said.  Puh-leese.  Cholla Hell would be more apt.  There were admittedly, a few flowers.  But we quickly noticed that we were stepping on thorns, even though we did not leave the trail.  The thorns were simply everywhere. 

The girls were crying, as they went straight into their shoes.  When I attempted to pick them out with my fingers, the microscopic barbs stuck so that my fingers were now hooked to their shoes.  I yanked my fingers from the thorns and we got out of there as fast as we could.

Back at the car, we found our shoes were covered with these spiky thorns.  I tried pulling them out with a rag, but they were so tenacious I could not get them out.  I used my Swiss Army knife and managed to dig them out with the knife and yank with the tweezers.  It took an hour of work, but we got our shoes restored to wearability.

Don’t follow ME when I’m exploring the desert!  You may not want to follow my down the techno trail, either.

But I got my library book at last.  What was it about?  A woman’s long walk up the Pacific Crest Trail.  I wonder if she ran into the Cholla Gardens?

Dad and the Admiral's Hair

My dad was an officer in the Navy, but never went on a ship.  He was a civil engineer, a Seabee, one of those straightforward types.  Lots of pens in his pocket and knew how to use a slide rule.  Study hard, do what’s right, and get ahead, he told us kids.  Work hard and get the job done.  He took things seriously and we did not dare get out of line.

Engineers might be accused of being utilitarian and non-flamboyant, but the Admiral who was due to visit sure wasn’t.  He cut a dashing figure, Admiral Lord Nelson of the British Navy couldn’t be handsomer. 

Dad hoped their unit would put on a good show for the inspection.  Admiral Umbidott was supposed to give a speech as well, and Dad hustled to make sure that the microphone was working, the chairs would not collapse, the podium wouldn’t tip over, and the stairs to the platform adhered to every safety precaution.  The office and unit were spick and span.  Every Seabee was on his best behavior and in perfect uniform.

When the inspection came, Dad walked behind the Admiral, Captains and various officers and no doubt giving the men stern looks.  Occasionally the Admiral would stop in front of a sailor and ask him something.  Eventually the officers went up the steps to the platform (which did not collapse), and Dad said a few words of introduction for the Admiral.

Admiral Umbidott has a magnificent head of hair.  Even I, sitting in row three, knew that he must put a little Grecian Formula in it.  Black, wavy and full.  He certainly spent time tanning and working out.  Admiral stripes went halfway up his forearm, and he had ribbons up to his shoulder and, as far as anyone could tell, over onto his back.  Whew.

The Admiral stood up to give his speech, waiting just behind Dad as Dad finished his introduction.  Dad gestured toward him, and oh horrors, accidentally knocked off the Admiral’s hat.  Even that wouldn’t have been so bad, except that his toupee went flying too.

There stood Admiral Umbidott with his very untanned bald head.  It positively gleamed. 

Dad looked apoplectic.

The Admiral, not missing a beat, stepped to the podium began his speech. 

At that point, a Lieutenant decided to be helpful.  He jumped up, snatched the toupee and made for the Admiral. 

Dad was not about to let the Lieutenant fumble it back on.  Upstage of the Admiral, Dad grabbed at the Lieutenant’s arm, but missed.  A LtCdr saw the missed attempt and stuck out his foot, tripping the Lieutenant.  The toupee flew out of the Lieutenant’s hand, the Admiral turned to see the commotion, and the toupee hit the Admiral in the chest, snagging on his medals.  It hung there for a few minutes while the Admiral pondered it.  The sprawled Lt sheepishly got to his feet.

“Thank you,” said the Admiral.  Standing full height, chest bedecked with ribbons and his fouled toupee, he carefully extracted it, put it back on.

“I tell you,” said the Admiral, “I tried using hair restorer.  I rubbed it in twice a day but now I have to shave my hands.”

The sailors busted up.

“Some people assume I’m bald.  I am nothing of the kind.  It is just a very large center part.”

The audience laughed too.

“I once had to pay $25 for a haircut. $24 of it was for a search fee.”

Everyone roared with laughter and clapped. 

The Admiral gave his speech then, and it was a pretty good one too.  Afterward he said, “Most fun I’ve had in a long time.  You engineers are a riot.”

“Aren’t we just?” said Dad, embarrassed. 

The Admiral, worthy of all his medals, kissed my mom on the cheek and shook my dad’s hand.

Yellowstone, Cameras and a 3 Year Old

Remember Instamatic cameras?  With little flashcubes that twirled around? Groundbreaking at the time, with film cassettes that dropped into the back of the camera.  Snap it shut, and zip-a-dee-do-dah, you were ready to shoot.  Older camera required strips of film to be pulled out from a canister and aligned on sprockets.  Fooey.  Who wanted to mess with that? When our younger daughter was three years old, she had a Fischer-Price toy Instamatic camera with a flashcube on top.  It had some photos inside that rotated, as did the flashcube.  When we loaded the kids in our new Ford van and took off on a cross country camping trip to Yellowstone that year, we made sure to take it along.  Pretty cute to see her snapping photos as we made our journey.

We all slept in the van.  Daddy and Mommy in the back on a fold out bed, older girl on the bench seat and  Little Sissy on the floor with beloved Blanky and Panda.  We merrily sang Disney tunes, bought a flat of cherries, and ate plenty of road snacks.  Off to where the buffalo roam. 

Upon entering Yellowstone, we were given a warning flyer.  “STAY AWAY FROM ANIMALS!”  “DO NOT FEED THE BEARS!”  “STAY AWAY FROM GEYSERS!”  “STAY ON BOARDWALKS, HOT CRUST MAY COLLAPSE INTO THERMAL POOLS!”  This all made perfect sense, and we are the obedient sort of tourist. 

No sooner than we were out of sight of the entrance and on some back road, the van broke down.  

Handyman Daddy jumped out.  “Gas pedal linkage,” he announced, as he struggled to reaffix it.

Always marry a handyman, if you ask me.

“Dear, what’s that in the bushes?” I asked.

“Looks like a moose.  No worries, he’s napping.” 

“Where?” shouted the children.  “I wanna see!”

“Shh!” I didn’t want him to wake up.  Amazingly, car after car passed us with no offers to help.  Even a ranger went by and didn’t stop.  I kept my eye on the moose, ready to holler warnings should he stand and shake his antlers in our direction.  I kept glancing at the warning flyer, which showed a man being flung into the air by a bison. 

Thankfully Handyman Hubby hopped back in, started ‘er up and off we went. 

We had a great time seeing the sights.  At each stop, we piled out.  Little Sissy dutifully “took pictures” with her toy camera, as did we.  I did not have an Instamatic, so I struggled with film canisters, aligning the film on sprockets.  I learned that it was better to get 24 shots per roll rather than 36, because the greater amount of film resulted in the sprockets struggling to crank it all out, and sometimes the holes down the side of the film tore.  Not being able to crank the film forward to the next shot meant waste, and film was expensive.  Getting the smaller rolls of film meant changing them more often.  My camera had an automatic winding function, so when it sensed the roll was done, it started (noisily!) cranking the film back into the camera.  Handy function.  Except once, several years previously, when I attempted to quietly take a photo of our nephew’s bride approaching him at the alter and the camera started braying: “EEEE-YAW, EEE-YAW!”   Wrapped the darn thing up in a sweater.  Hubby and nephew cracked up.  Mother of the bride didn’t.

Little Sissy asked when did we have to change her film?  Pretty soon, we told her.

Going to Old Faithful was obligatory, of course.  The signs promised that it erupted every 90 minutes or so.  

We waited.  And waited.  And w-a-i-t-e-d.  The bleachers surrounding the geyser were getting pretty hard and ice cream was sounding more and more appealing.

“I don’t think this is an old geyser,” mused Hubby.  “I think it’s an Old Geezer instead.” 

The people in front of us cracked up and turned around.

 “Yeah,” continues Hubby. “An Old Geezer who says ‘I’ll blow any ol’ time I feel like it!  I”ll blow when I’m darn good and ready!’”

Eventually, of course, Old Geezer blew. Latecomers did not understand why our section of bleachers laughed uproariously when it did. 

Nearby, there were boardwalks to other spectacular geysers.  We dutifully heeded the warning flyer and stayed on them, and Little Sissy took pictures of them with her toy camera.  As did I.  Plenty, in case she asked for some.

Coming back, we ran into trouble.  Not fifteen feet from the boardwalk stood an enormous mature bison.  Is that redundant?  Even calves seem enormous when fifteen feet away.  Many families waited with us for the buffalo to nibble grass and move away.  It did not.  A backlog of tourists piled up behind us.  No one could leave the boardwalk and venture out on the crust to get around the beast.  Who knew if you would be swallowed up into a boiling thermal pool?  He got closer to the boardwalk.

The sun was getting mighty hot.  I thought if we very carefully and slowly walked past, we could get by.  Silently, slowly, we approached.  Lots of tourists behind us followed our cue and quietly, with heads down and watching out of the corner of their eyes, crept towards him.

But I couldn’t resist taking a picture when we were right next to him.

“EEEE-YAW!  EEE-YAW!” brayed my camera, rewinding.

The buffalo jerked up his head and his eyes flew open, rather like Scooby-Doo when he sees a ghost.  

“Huh?” he snorted.

“Run for your lives!” shouted Hubby.  “It’s the buffalo mating call.”

I could not run anywhere then as I was doubled over laughing, trying to stuff the camera in my pocket to muffle the noise.

“No, no!  Don’t put the camera there,” laughed Hubby.

We hustled the children past the buffalo, who didn’t move.  Safely back at the lodge, we rewarded our escapades with ice cream.  If you’re going to marry a handyman, add to that a sense of humor.  Of course you may die laughing.

Yellowstone was having record tourists that year.  You’d never know it, for not only is it as big as Connecticut and Rhode Island combined, and the employees were outstandingly friendly.  It was like we were the only tourists that were there.  As I paid for our family’s dinner, the cashier asked to see the pictures of the girls when photos fell out of my purse.  No one was behind me and she cooed over them.  Who takes time to do that?  When we rented a rowboat, a family of river otters followed us along the lakeshore.  But when we accidently left Little Sissy’s beloved Blanky in a cabin in the Roosevelt area, we found out what great service really was.

We were halfway up Montana before we discovered that it was missing.  This was unthinkable.  How could we have missed it?  We always check the room carefully before leaving.  Since these were the days before cellphones and Internet, we had to find a pay phone and a phone directory that might have the number of Yellowstone Park.  We drove for miles before happening upon a little town.

We got a number and called it from a pay phone, connecting to kindly young operator at Yellowstone Information.  I explained that we had stayed in a cabin in the far northeast of the Park.  He knew which ones.  He told me he would stay on the line with me, and got me connected to the cabin check-in desk, then got me connected to housekeeping.  They sent a maid over to that cabin and she thoroughly searched the place.

She found it!  It had gotten pushed down between the bed and the wall, and the maid actually thought to look there.  No wonder we hadn’t spotted it when we looked under the beds, something we always do in case a stray shoe gets under there.  She brought it back to the desk, and the operator took my name.  I pleaded for him to send it C.O. D. or whatever they had to do, I’d pay for postage.  We simply had to have Blanky back.  He told me he understood completely, took my address and promised to send it.

When we got home, there it was, postage paid.  There was, however, an envelope inside should I wish to donate to the park.  You bet I did.

Little Sissy immediately took a picture of Blanky with her toy camera.

Just in case you were wondering, the picture of the buffalo came out pretty well, too.

Not A Reason In the World Not To Write the Blog

We’ve been so busy lately.  BABIES!  Just don’t know where the time goes.  TWINS!  I planned on writing a lot in my blog while I’ve been home. BOTTLES!  Somehow I just can’t seem to sit down for five minutes and compose a thought.  DIAPERS!  I guess I should just attack the issue rather than setting it aside.  TOYS!  Seems a simple enough thing to do.  RIDES ON THE POPPER CAR!  All I need to do is clear off a space on the kitchen table and get to work, right?  RICE CEREAL AND MASHED BANANAS!  BIBS!  HIGH CHAIRS!  I don’t see a problem here at all.  HUGS!  PEEKABOO!  GIGGLES!  I haven’t a reason in the world not to get to work.  Not one.  Okay, well maybe two.