First finished pottery

The kiln did not set the house on fire. 

The dried pieces went in to fire a week ago, and this weekend we had a glazing party in the studio, covering the table with brushes and cups and smears of probably-nontoxic chemicals.

Glazed pottery looks terrible before it’s fired - the clear is opaque, the yellow is black, the blue is red, the red looks the same as the blue and you can’t remember which cup you dipped in - and then the all-day baking activates chemistry. The kiln cooled through the night, and in the morning I went sneaking out in my pajamas to crack the still-warm oven and peek in, feeling that early-hours magical-transformation anticipation for the first time since I was a kid tiptoeing down the stairs to look at the stockings. It was the most satisfying personal moment since I walked through the rain at night on Whitbey Island with an Elizabeth Zanzinger painting in my arms.

The pottery is ugly as all hell, but we learned a lot about how glaze behaves, and some of them surprised us with flecks of gold and deep shiny color. The kids cheered and made sad trombone noises as we went through them.

After work, I scooped the clay slop out of the fuckup bucket and spread it on a plaster slab to reconstitute, then wedged up a big pile of reclaimed clay and threw three decent mugs in a row. I don’t even know how that happened. Running your fingers slowly up and down a spinning cylinder and feeling it move into the shape you’re thinking of is like telekinesis. At night, in a basement studio with quiet music, it’s a good zone to be in.

Feeling really happy over here.

Zenny is feeling good, and confident her dish is the best one

Kiln reveal

Okay, so now we know the yellow is terrible 

Everyone wants to see mold spots in their coffee 

Maybe a couple keepers here, but my wax design came out like a blorb 

Process: bisque, taped and glazed, finished mug

Clay slop turning back into clay 

Last night’s mugs. Nevermind the fingerprints at the bottom where I picked them up, that gets trimmed off later

ETFs and Rt.66

After getting back from visiting with my Olds, I immediately switched to decaf and invested in the stock market. Now I’m constantly refreshing my stocks to see the numbers fluctuate during trading hours.

And I've been reading finance magazines. For fun. In my reading glasses. 

Painted the Route 66 ornament I brought home from a Kingman gas station.

The girl is bouncing back and eating again, now that she's full of medicine. And she has some negative reviews to leave about Gatorade. "'Arctic' is not a flavor," she says."And electrolytes are not my natural prey." Kid, I have seen you lick the spout on the salt canister. More artificially flavored sports beverage for the rest of us.

Waiting

The only unvaccinated member of our family was exposed to a confirmed case, and now we’re at the ER with a 103.4 fever because no doctor will see her and no urgent care will answer their phones.

Not happy.

- - - -

Updates:

The isolation room does not have a tv. 

- - - -

RESULTS

Acute kidney infection.

As the ER doctor peeled off his layers of PPE, he said, “So, when do you think you’ll be having storytime again?” 

Dude. 

Maybe when you don’t have to WEAR A HAZMAT SUIT TO DIAGNOSE A KIDNEY INFECTION. 

- - - -

She snooze.

The ER doctor/storytime dad did some research on kidney treatment for tiny little girls and prescribed an antibiotic that only lasts 10 days, but which she needs for 14 days. The pharmacist gave me a bottle of liquid antibiotics and then held up a bottle of powder and a little bottle of water. “The doctor called to say you are competent. After 7 days, you’ll need to add the water to the powder and shake it to activate the second half of the antibiotics.”

You guys, the doctor said I am competent.

At least enough to add water to powder and shake it.

Home

We gave big hugs and kisses to the aunt and uncles and grandpa, and then ran for it without saying goodbye to Drunk Wife, who was smoking in the laundry room where she hides her booze. "Smell ya later!" I called as we drove away. Vicious.

Drove to Las Vegas at traffic flow speeds that made my hands go white and numb on the steering wheel. The Hoover Dam has been walled off on both sides of the highway since the last time I drove over it, I guess to prevent unpaid sightseeing/panicky drivers crashing at 90 mph into the dam.*

The plane was two hours late taking off while they did math and waited for the temperature to drop a couple degrees so we could actually get into the air. I suddenly remembered again that I don’t actually like flying.

But I'm home. Zenny lost and gained teeth, the chickens murdered my pumpkin plants, the lychees are ready to pick, and the cats immediately stole the expensive yarn out of my travel bag and slobbered all over it. I upended a cooler of Trader Joe's snacks onto the floor for the kids and then napped for most of the day while they sat on me and watched Loki. Everything is right where it should be.

And then I had to go back to WORK. What kind of world is this.

* I was not going 90mph. Speed limit was 65, I was going 69 to keep from being flattened by semi trucks, and that was quite enough thanks 

Arizona day of the donkeys

You know you’re having adventure when you’re not having any fun, we always say. So we knew better than to set out for adventure in the morning, but we did it anyway. 

“You have to go to Oatman and see the burros!” our cousin said. The town of Oatman was an old mine, and when the miners left they abandoned their donkeys. The donkeys survived and took over the ghost town, until years later people figured out they were still up there, going in and out of the saloon like they were tending bar, and shopkeepers set up as people came to visit and feed the wild donkeys. Now it’s a shabby little donkey town with tourist shops and a live gun show at high noon.

There are two ways to get to Oatman; a little stretch of uphill highway from Laughlin, or a tightly winding up-and-down cliffside road with no guardrails on the Kingman side. Guess which side we came from?

When we lived on the reservation, the trip to the grocery store in Chinle was along an unpaved cliffside road, and when the road crumbled in bad weather around blind curves, the wheels of our truck gripped the edge of the precipice in a way that gave us nightmares for the rest of our lives. And there it was. The nightmare is in Oatman, with full vistas of distant purple mountains just beyond your wheels, surprise donkeys around the blind corners and the bones of a hundred dead motorists below. There are signs all along the way warning motorcyclists that the road is not banked and they should try not to fly off the cliff.

“Fuck this,” my mom said, hiding her face.

“Holy shit, if our cousin hates us, she could just say so.”

Luckily, I trained on the cliffs of Maui for 5 years, and I kept the car smoothly on the road, with only a few moments of blind panicky terror that my mother did not detect until I parked safely in front of the saloon and then screamed a little bit.

We consoled ourselves by feeding donkeys, buying way too much leather and silver, eating a pulled pork sandwich at the old hotel, and then we added an hour to our trip home by escaping out the back way to Laughlin. It’s a good thing, too, because if we had to go back the way we came we’d still be up there, painting donkeys and living in Oatman for the rest of our days.

All these people snuck in through the safe side of the mountain, because there was not another soul on the side with murder cliffs 

Some classy shit in the souvenir shops

One of these donkeys is the mayor

My new hat, the best hat

I assume the guy who approved that road is in here

The restaurant in Oatman is decorated in dollar bills, proving outlaws are not doing their job in the Wild West

Getting a handle on the gouache, finally 

Back at the house for dinner, Drunk Wife made a flippant comment about how she wouldn’t need to pay for an urn for grandpa because he’d come in a cardboard box, and my mother very nearly picked her up and launched her like a shot put.

We had to dunk ourselves in my aunt’s hotel pool to extinguish the flames shooting out of my mother’s ears. The stars came out, I swam on the bottom of the pool in the silent yellow underwater light, and it is time to go home.

Arizona Day 8

Did absolutely nothing useful. Banged the table, declared that I needed a real breakfast, and loaded everyone up for a trip to the old Barrel of Crackers. I have never been to a Cracker Barrel, and was prepared to make fun of it, but then they sat me down in front of a pair of antique wooden sock blockers and I was filled with want. Started looking around at all the other old junk affixed to the walls and had the terrible realization that I was their demographic and they had hit the target. I hate that. And I bought a bag full of nostalgic candy to bring home for my kids. Goddamn it.

Drove over to Laughlin and rode the free water shuttle to the casinos. It was 114 degrees and the Colorado river was full of sun-stroked screaming people on jet skis. We cautiously fed dollar bills into the machines, slammed the flashing buttons arbitrarily, and cashed out the minute we made any extra money. I came out $5 ahead, and the sisters made about $20 apiece. My uncle smiled patiently, shook his head, and lost $7 on a milkshake. We win.

The water shuttle is one thrilling minute of high-speed jet ski dodging 

A whole lot of graphics when just a bill feeder and a single button would do the same job 

Early casino slot machine: the Skinner box

Went out to the Dambar Steakhouse with the cousins, and Drunk Wife was on her best wobbly behavior after getting called out at the last family dinner. Chalk one up for public embarrassment. 

Vacation toilet selfie proof of life:

Arizona day 7

Cleaned the junk pile in the dining room, hauled the poop rug outside and scrubbed it until I smelled like a wet dog, and  scanned a few hundred old photos to upload for printing. Almost fell asleep watching the fireworks go off over the downtown.

A snake slithered past my foot while I was hosing the rug off in the afternoon, and I couldn’t remember if the rhyme was red touches black, kill a Jack or red touches black, safe for a Jack, so I looked it up before running away. Either way, I think you’re pretty safe so long as you don’t grab it like a squeak toy. 

(It’s red touches black, safe for Jack, red touches yellow, kill a fellow. This one was just a red and black groundsnake.)

Two more days.

Arizona Day 6

First thing in the morning, we got in the truck to search Kingman’s yard and estate sales for shelving to organize the drunk wife’s wall-high cardboard box pile. 

We failed.

Kingman estate sale 

Instead, my mother found leather and silver gauntlets for motorcycle riding, and I paid a dollar for a mini growler with the Kingman Kwik Stop logo on it. My aunt had us stop at the Kwik Stop to fill it with one of the 300 beers on tap while we cashed in our lotto tickets for more tickets. 

“I think I am losing the battle against vice,” I said, looking at my loot. My mother took this as her opportunity to try to get me to buy a $400 gun at the swap meet. I absolutely do not need a $400 painting prop I can shoot myself with, but we hung around for a bit in the shade, drinking Gatorade and chatting with the gun guys about their homemade bullets. 

“Made all of those myself. I make silver ones, too. Good for werewolves, vampires, and zombies.”

“Zombies? Would silver make a difference to a zombie? Seems like a shame to use silver when a crowbar would do the job.”

“I’m not gonna ask. Can’t hurt.”

All the vices 

Good thing this was empty, because I would have had three holes in me just by the time she was done messing with it 

Shiny things 

Went to dinner with the Mormon cousins in their house on the nice side of the tracks, where the homes have yards of designer gravel instead of dirt. We ate tacos, swapped stories, I played with the 5 and 2 year olds, and folks were on the point of getting into the pool when Drunk Wife started sobering up and whining to go home. My mother got pissed off, words were exchanged, and I spent the rest of the evening doing peacekeeping in a chair next to the pool while she stewed in the water like an angry wonton. 

Yep, ready to go home.

Arizona Day 5

Some asshole spilled fish juice in the rental car, and spent the day trying to sniff out the stinky spot and clean it instead of taking nice pictures.

Went to Walmart and found a pamphlet that said “TRUST ME!” next to the toilet. Not sure which cult they wanted me to join, because I at least have enough sense not to pick up literature out of public toilets, but I love that somebody thought a sneaky crooked finger would be a good way to entice people to their doomsday ideology.

Not today, Walmart 

Spent some time painting the toothless decapitated deer that watched us eat dinner at the Hualapai lodge.

4th of July fireworks are everywhere, and it looks like sparklers are not illegal in the Wild West. I thought about stuffing a few packs of $2 sparklers into the suitcase for the kids, then decided that $2 was a good price to pay to not go to jail for smuggling fireworks. 

Today: cashing in my scratch ticket for what will surely be the winning card this time.

Temptation and vice everywhere over here.

Arizona day 4

Grandpa needed a day of down time, so we got out of their hair. Hit the wagon wheel trail for breakfast burritos and a hike before the sun was hot enough to ignite our hats.

Help

Walked around downtown at lunch, looking around in the little shops and spending an embarrassing amount of money on yarn.

The Rickety Cricket is a local brewery that used the wood from great-grandma’s demolished barn to build the second floor. We ordered a flight of ales and porters, and I tried a prickly pear beer that was very delicious.

All that dark wood is from the family barn. It lives!

“You have to go see Gran in the window,” everyone told us. This is word salad. Gran is dead. I wondered if they had put a window in her coffin. “No, it’s at the old hotel. There’s a mannequin operating a switchboard, and that was her job, so they named it after her.” Well, okay.

The old hotel is next to the train tracks. My uncle kept the truck running while I ran up and took a couple quick pictures. Out of nowhere, a leathery-faced man with stiff legs came lurching toward me, and my uncle jumped out to intercept him while I ran back to the truck. Quest ACHIEVED.

Uncle in reflection, rounding the truck to save me from being murdered by a walking beef stick

I’m going to be thinking about Gran trapped as a mannequin in an abandoned hotel for the rest of my life

Uncle assembled the barbecue and I made the mistake of listening to my mom when she suggested we might grill some fish. Fish does not grow in the desert, I thought, but I like making people happy through cooking, so I bought the freshest piece of salmon at the mega grocery, brought it back to marinate, and immediately filled the camper with the stench of rank fishy fish. The smell stained my hands. And my pants. And the fridge. Then I went and dropped it into the fire anyway. Disagreeable desert salmon. Good thing there were hamburgers.

Still messing up the sketchbook.

Arizona day 3

Grandpa’s drunk wife is having a hard time figuring out if she should feel appreciative that we’re all here setting up in-home hospice care and meal delivery, or feel insulted that we don’t think she can care for grandpa because she’s a nonfunctional alcoholic. 

The answer is: yes.

(She’s the daughter of his dead best friend, they teamed up after my grandma and her dad died, about 30 years ago. We care about her in an annoyed way.)

This time we had a family of quail along with the rabbit outside the camper. A puma went by, but she strolled into the beige brush with her beige fur before I could flatten myself to the window with my phone.

Spot the quail and the cottontail

Won $3 on a $3 scratch lotto ticket. Feeling pretty damn smug about that.

In the afternoon, I took my mom thrift shopping, which in Kingman means picking a path through piles of paint cans and confederate flags (“We have WWII German flags! See owner!”) and peering into dusty glass cases full of marbles and switchblades. Mom wouldn’t let me get a suitcase full of knives and gun-shaped lighters, because she doesn’t know how to shop for kid souvenirs, I guess.

The furniture goes outside, where it is safe from water damage

I am used to being comfortably invisible, as a middle-aged middle-sized haole, but suddenly there are big men with big beards who are looking at me like a pork chop. Sorry, boys, I am a piece of old salt fish in a pork chop suit. Run for it.