And I've been reading finance magazines. For fun. In my reading glasses.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
Spent some time painting the toothless decapitated deer that watched us eat dinner at the Hualapai lodge.
Today: cashing in my scratch ticket for what will surely be the winning card this time.
Temptation and vice everywhere over here.
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.
“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 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.
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.
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.
