Vacation Hard!: Part 7 - Keep your foot hard on the pedal - Son, never mind them brakes......

First a gentle reminder. If you experience any of the following:
Easily hurt and/or compromised feelings
Extreme religious and/or political opinions and mentality
Diarrhea of the mouth while suffering the above afflictions
Please do not read my blog.

If you have an aversion to cursing, violence, sex, destruction of property, having a sense of humor, or Article 19 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights please do not read my blog.

If you dislike or have difficulty understanding satire/sarcasm, just don't even bother. Nobody likes you anyway.

Awesome blog reading discretion has been advised. Don't be mad, Boo



Vacation: Day 4

 

 

 

Ohhhhhhmyfuckinghead.

I checked my phone and it was.....oh God, the pounding!!........about 10am. My Dad hadn't called so I figured.....I'd shoot myself in the face to end this suffering.......I should call him. The T-Mobile reception where they live.......I think someone poured gasoline into my mouth.......sucks, so I had to borrow Roger's phone to call to see what the plan was.....besides vomiting copious amounts of intestine into my new best friend, Mr. Toilet......for the day.

Brrrrring, Brrrrrring...."Hello?"

 

"Arrum.....Good Morning--"

"Where the fuck are you?"

 

"Livingston Texas, Dad. How are you this morning?"

"All I know is you better get your ass back here in a hurry. Carlos (one of my step brothers) started your brisket last night and everyone is expecting you here before 5 O'Clock and it's the Labor Day weekend so get in the truck right now and move. Be careful. Love you."

 

 

"Uh-Huh. Can I have a cup of coffee first?"

"...............*silence*..........................."

"Ugh.......FINE!!"

 

"Ok. See you in a little bit."

By the tone of his voice, there was no way I was going to get to stay for lunch like I had planned the night before, so Roger hooked me up with one of those canned coffee drinks, and if a beverage ever saved my ass, it was that one.

So I got all my crap packed up and gave hugs to a busy 3 year old and got to hold Mia one more time.......and that's when she smiled at me......it's like she hypontized me with her little baby eyes.......and they said: "You are mine now, Daniel. You will love me all the days and buy me many things. And it doesn't even have to be my birthday. Go now and miss me terribly."

And so, totally dehydrated and hung over, I left. I thought it was totally unfair that I didn't get to spend more time with them, but I did say I'd be back to have dinner with my step family before we left for D.C., so this is all the Frontier's fault for breaking down the day before. Oh well, at least I got to spend a little time.

I hit Houston around noonish and it was pretty much the same as it was coming in the day before, but in reverse because going south is like traveling down hill. Since it was the Labor Day weekend, smokey was out in force. Out in force with the giant smokey asshole stick shoved up their collective rectum. These fuckers were looking to make some money off of people who were doing practically nothing. Are your passenger's feet on the dashboard? Ticket. Going 2 miles over the speed limit? Ticket. Got those fuzzy dice hanging from your rear view mirror that you've had there for like 5 years? Well, you'll find out on Labor Day weekend in Texas from a man wearing a giant coyboy hat (who isn't doing a fucking thing associated with being a coyboy) that your precious fuzzy dice are considered an "obstruction of view". Ticket. I had a state trooper follow me for (no joke) eleven miles. I know because he was the third one to get right behind me (or right along side) and tail my ass like I owed him money, so I hit the trip meter and watched. Buncha douchers.

Even with a bitchin' hangover and gasoline mouth, and on Labor Day weekend no less, I still made Houston Texas traffic my bitch. That's how nerds roll.

Thank God the average Texas freeway speed limit is 70mph. I got home in record time, I think, rolling into my step sister Claudia's house in K-ville around 4pm. Since Larry took up residence in my ass about getting home quickly, I figured he'd be there, but noooooooooo. He's still at the shop. Figures.

 

 

 

I go in and greet everybody and the house smells fantastic. Like a Mexican food flavor explosion. I get a beer and park it at the kitchen table and wonder at how much my step sister Claudia's children (who of course barely remember me) have grown. Claudia's son, Aden, quickly ropes me into watching him play his Star Wars video game on the Wii......let's face it: if it's got Star Wars in the title, I'm so down for whatever it is. So I'm sitting there watching him play, yelling at him to "watch out.....the guy is right there!! You gonna git kilt!!", and Larry walks in and starts teasing me about my affinity for all things dork. I've suffered this for years, so it's easily dealt with and we file off to dinner when Carlos shows up with the enormous brisket he'd been smoking for 18 hours.

 

 

 

I love the Chapas......they fed me until my pancreas screamed "One more fucking bite, and I'll give you diabetes so bad you'll need to DRINK your insulin from a Big Gulp cup!!"

It's a beautiful thing, to be surrounded by people who love you. I forget this much of the time, because I'm not around any family up in Oregon, and I live a fairly quiet hermit like life style, which suits me fine, but can get pretty lonely. That being said, when you are seperated from family and come back to it, you appreciate it so much more than when it's around all the time and peeing all over your toilet seats and losing all your nice spoons.

 

 

 

Next time on Vacation Hard!: This ain't vacation.  Normal people sleep on vacation.  And there's less yelling......

 "Danny! It's time to get up!"

Vacation Hard! Part 6: Been makin' a fool out of folks just like you.....and helping white people dance.....

First a gentle reminder. If you experience any of the following:
Easily hurt and/or compromised feelings
Extreme religious and/or political opinions and mentality
Diarrhea of the mouth while suffering the above afflictions
Please do not read my blog.

If you have an aversion to cursing, violence, sex, destruction of property, having a sense of humor, or Article 19 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights please do not read my blog.

If you dislike or have difficulty understanding satire/sarcasm, just don't even bother. Nobody likes you anyway.

Awesome blog reading discretion has been advised. Don't be mad, Boo.

 

Dad finished up on the truck around 7pm and I decided to wait until the next morning to make the trip to Livingston. We get to what we call "the little house" in Kingsville (the first house my folks bought after I was born) and I get straight to the task of washing the smell of baked ass off of myself and doing all the personal hygiene required to make me not smell like a homeless person then lurch off to bed.

The next morning I hear the old man grumbling and slamming shit around in what I assume was an attempt to make a point without actually saying anything directly to my face. I crack my door open and give him the "what the fuck" look. He stops in the hall and glares at me, pointing toward the bathroom:

"I don't know what the hell you're doing at your fucking house, son, but this here.........this is a man's house. We don't put toilet seats down in a man's house."

You damn women have me brainwashed even when I'm on vacation.

Vacation Day 3:

Larry and I poke around all morning, running errands, talking about a hundred different things. We had a quick meal at Lydia's, a popular place for breakfast in Kingsville, where we ran into a couple of his compadres and a couple of the nurses I used to work with and my first nurse boss ever, Mrs. Sears (who doesn't have a first name as far as any nurse at Spohn Kleberg Hospital knows) and her husband. Gave her a hug and chatted for a second and she gives me that same stern look she used to when I was a 19 year old punk and she says: "I'm watching you." I thought about it after we left and here is what I think she really meant: "I'm watching you on facebook, Dan. You seriously need to consider cleaning it up a little."

**Note to Mrs. Sears: Mrs. Sears, if you're reading this, I'm really, really sorry! I was raised in a military family and around guys who use the f-bomb as a noun, verb, and adjective. My Mom even cussed worse than some of those guys, so I have a hard time expressing myself without bad words unless I'm around people I respect, like you (what does that say about the rest of you nerds?). Love you, Mrs. Sears. Thanks for giving me a chance all those years ago and then putting up with me once I got there. No promises on the bad language, though.

So I left for Livingston around 10am which, according to everybody, was a bad time to leave because I would hit Houston during the clutches of rush hour hell. Here is my theory about that: every hour, with the exception of between 3 and 4 am, is rush hour hell in Houston, Texas. Just like it is in Atlanta, Dallas, L.A., Miami, Chicago, and any other city with shitty crime statistics. The blue collar criminals run until around 3am performing muggings and vandalism, then the white collar criminals wake up early for coffee and cocaine before they start a busy day of insider trading and various forms of securities fraud.

After an uneventful 4 hours of driving, I get to Houston. It's like driving in a Nascar thing (match? game? tournament? who cares?). People dart in and out of traffic and I begin to notice a trend: the only ones doing it are either suped up trucks and tricked out coupes or high end Mercedes and BMWs. Translation: Gangsters and Securities Traders. And now you understand.

Anyway, I get through Houston without a scratch and make it to BFE, Texas in a short order. After some initial confusion I find Laura's house and go in to meet the chillrun, Jackson 3 years old and Mia only 4 months. I've known Laura and my "second family" since I was 17 and for whatever reason the girls in that family have always called me "Boo". So Laura instructed Jackson to call me "Uncle Boo" which I thought would be uber cute.......until he started calling me "Uncle Boobs". Of course, he doesn't really know what he's saying and Laura tried to correct him, but let's face it: we're all laughing on the inside cause that shit is funny.

So Uncle Boobs held little Mia and instantly fell in love. With both the kids really; they're being raised to be polite and respectful, qualities many children severely lack nowadays. Jackson is a character if I ever saw one and sharp as a tack, and Mia's so damn cute it makes you want want to punch your significant other in the mouth and holler "It's your fault we can't make babies that look like this!" Maybe they ain't blood, but I'm damn proud to be Uncle Boobs to them chillrun.

"Hey Jackson!  Lemme get a picture of you......uh......ok........that works I guess."

Gotta go feed the evil goats

Been a long time since I've held a baby. Laura watched me like a hawk.

Roger made it home from work and we started the drinking pretty early in the evening, Laura being the only responsible one. I quickly insulted Roger's choice of whiskey and bastardized it by drinking it with Dr. Pepper (I regret it in retrospect and apologize humbly). We finished off the whiskey and made the switch to Bacardi 151 and some lager that was darker than that swamp water shit they serve at McMinneman's (The Terminator) but delicious; then started smoking cigars and I made my first attempt at playing guitar drunk. I know I sucked, but the sauce had me thinking I was rocking hard, tasty abs when actually I was rocking wet, soggy noodles. And then the greatest thing in the history of alcohol happened: Roger made us flaming Dr. Peppers.

  I don't know if you've ever had a flaming Dr. Pepper Reader, but if you have not, you must stop reading this right now and go have one. I'll wait.

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Jeez......take forever why don't you.

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.........HOLY SHIT, READER!! You look totally fucked up!! Told you that shit is ah-ma-za-zing!

Poor Roger was wore out after working in the Gulf and then driving all the way home.  You can see the lid of the Tums bottle in the lower left corner.....cause we're old now and partyin' ain't easy no more.

We park our asses outside on the patio and continue the drinking. We talked about so many different things and I honestly can't remember it all; I just know the McGregors and I were nerding out over everything from diving (their profession) and guns to music, movies and military history (a right good Texas hoot'n'anny, Brother Cousin). There are only a handful of people I know that can bang out a conversation with so many different topics and never get tired......Roger and Laura: y'all complete the nerd in me and shit.

Off to bed around 3am and instantly slip into an alcohol induced coma.

Next time on Vacation Hard!: Keep your foot hard on the pedal - Son, never mind them brakes......

"You are mine now, Daniel. You will love me all the days and buy me many things. And it doesn't even have to be my birthday........"

Vacation Hard!: Part 5 - It's getting hot in here! So take off all your cloth---NO DAN!! You're in public!

First a gentle reminder. If you experience any of the following:
Easily hurt and/or compromised feelings
Extreme religious and/or political opinions and mentality
Diarrhea of the mouth while suffering the above afflictions
Please do not read my blog.

If you have an aversion to cursing, violence, sex, destruction of property, having a sense of humor, or Article 19 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights please do not read my blog.

If you dislike or have difficulty understanding satire/sarcasm, just don't even bother. Nobody likes you anyway.

Awesome blog reading discretion has been advised. Don't be mad, Boo.

Vacation Day 2:

Irma went to work that morning and Dad and I got packed up for the trip back to Kingsville, where he has an auto shop that's always overloaded with work. We ran a few errands and stopped by the original Iwo Jima memorial which was relocated to Harlingen (God only knows why) after the much larger one in Arlington was built.

Dad's checkin' it out.

Once we got to Kingsville, I'd be leaving with the Frontier to go see my good friend Laura, her husband Roger and all the children they've had since the last time I saw them in 2006. She lives in Livingston, a little town about an hour north of Houston, so it's about a 6 hour drive from Kingsville, depending on Houston traffic, so it was important that I leave as early as possible to avoid Satan's rush hour.

So after a brief explanation on how to operate the Frontier, Dad let me go. Once again, if you know mechanics, they never have a completely functional automobile. The Frontier had a problem with the A/C where I'd have to open the hood and hit the clutch plate on the front of the compressor with a long stick Larry had specifically for that purpose, because the magnets were so worn and old that the plate got stuck in the off position every time you turned off the engine.........which led to him not turning off the engine even when it was appropriate:

"Aren't you going to turn off the engine before I pump the gas, Dad?"

"What for?"

"Uh......so I don't die. Isn't it dangerous to have the engine running when you do that?"

"Naaaaaaah." Which is "Larry" for "Just fucking do it, shithead. I know what I'm doing.".......needless to say, I've heard that A LOT.

Anyway, I get going a little later in the day. I miss an exit about an hour north of Kingsville and have to double back to get on the right track. The A/C goes out because I was probably pushing the truck too hard in my frustration, so I pull off on the shoulder so I can whack the plate to get it to go back on. I pop the hood and get out, whack the thing 2 or 3 times and it won't catch. So, like the mechanically impaired moron I am, I turn off the engine and wait for a couple of minutes to see if it just needed a "rest". Hit the key again and the bastard won't turn over.

Now, because of the understanding I have that bad shit happens to me on vacation, I'm much calmer and accepting of this situation than I thought possible. I calmly call Larry and field a bunch of questions that annihilate that patience:

"Well, what the fuck did you do?"

"I turned the engine off and it wouldn't turn back on."

"Why did you turn it off in the first place?"

"I thought it would help."

"The only thing I think it helped is your understanding about why you should not have done that."

"JUSTCOMEGETMEGODDAMNIT!!"

So there I sat. It was only 96 degrees at the time, but according to the heat index, it felt like it was 104. As I stewed in my ball soup, I realized something very odd: I go into the sauna at my gym in Oregon a couple of times a month and I am sweating more profusely sitting in a broken down Nissan Frontier on the shoulder of a Texas highway than I do in a place that is specifically designed to make me sweat. I laughed at this which served to briefly elevate my mood.

Dad showed up quickly with the car dolly and we got loaded up and went back to the shop in Kingsville. During the ride back we had this argument:

"Heat index is supposed to be 104 today."

"What a load of shit. If it's 96 degrees, then that's what it is."

"What? You don't believe in the heat index? It's fucking science, Dad. You lived in Wisconsin until you were 20. You're trying to tell me you don't believe in wind chill factor either?"

"Oh, hell no."

"Oh, what the fu--.....ok, so you don't think that if it's 20 degrees below zero outside with the wind blowing and you go outside without enough clothes on that it's not going to feel like it's about 15 degrees colder than it actually is?"

"Just listen to that sentence......first of all it's your own goddamn fault for going outside without proper clothing. Second, if you go outside and it's cold enough to freeze your spit before it hits the ground, I guaran-fucking-tee you, you're not going to give a shit what the 'wind chill factor' is."

I'm sorry, Reader. Curse words are mandatory when making a point in my family.

Anyway, back in Kingsville, Dad gets busy fixing the truck. He figured out that the alternator was the main problem, after he explained something about the break mechanics of that vehicle and how that somehow tied in to helping the truck not start. Clearly I'm not mentally equipped to tell you exactly what that is, because even though I try to understand what the hell he's saying, it still sounds like a Charlie Brown teacher's conference in my head, but here is the dialouge anyway (bear with me on this):

"Almost all newer vehicles are equipped with a safety feature that makes it so you have to push on the brake before you can start your car, so that means there is a little button at the base of the brake pedal that's engaged when you push it down. Now that's nice and all, but the Japanese, in their infinite fucking wisdom, decided that on the opposite end of that button, there needed to be a "pad" so that the button didn't get worn out as fast.......but the material used to make the fucking pad is kind of like the rubber that a pencil eraser is made out of, so it gets old and it dries up and falls apart."

"Well that's pretty damn stupid. What the hell did they do that for?"

"Hold on.......the engineers down at Nissan didn't call you when they were designing this model? Why didn't they call you, Danny? Obviously you have a lot of insight that can be brought to the table when these highly educated motherfuckers get together to build a new---"

"WAIT, WAIT, WAIT!!! You mean to tell me that the alternator and this pad thingy failed at the SAME TIME when I was driving this piece of shit?!"

"Well, son, you're 6'4", sitting in a truck designed by a small Asian man, and your goddamn leg probably weighs 70 pounds. I don't imagine you were being gentle with the pedals."

".......well, shit."

All of Larry's "work".

 The Briggs' are simple folk; that piece of cardboard he's laying on is known as a "Mexican Creeper" in the Auto biz.

But you want to know the really funny thing, Reader? That truck has been servicing my Dad's trips back and forth to San Antonio to see his doctors for two and a half years. That truck has over 225 thousand miles on it's original engine. That truck has never broken down during that time. I get in the thing alone and it suddenly has a change of heart? I hope you're starting to understand the underlying theme here: I am seriously cursed.

Next time on Vacation Hard!: Been makin' a fool out of folks just like you.....and helping white people dance.....

".........HOLY SHIT, READER!! You look totally fucked up!! Told you that shit is ah-ma-za-zing!"

Vacation Hard!: Part 4 - Everywhere I go, there's weather......whether or not the weather is fair there......never.

First a gentle reminder. If you experience any of the following:
Easily hurt and/or compromised feelings
Extreme religious and/or political opinions and mentality
Diarrhea of the mouth while suffering the above afflictions
Please do not read my blog.

If you have an aversion to cursing, violence, sex, destruction of property, having a sense of humor, or Article 19 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights please do not read my blog.

If you dislike or have difficulty understanding satire/sarcasm, just don't even bother. Nobody likes you anyway.

Awesome blog reading discretion has been advised. Don't be mad, Boo.

Larry and I drive to Harlingen from San Antonio, picking up conversation about many things most people would find tedious and boring, but our level of enthusiasm is both awesome and totally nerdy so you'd probably get a kick out of it if only to tease me later. I miss my Dad and his straight ahead way of making a point, but like I said before: the man lives to fuck with me. And that, dear Reader, is why I kick it in Oregon.

That and the Texas heat. I mean, seriously. I was on fucking fire.

The four and a half hour drive went quickly because Larry was telling his "airplane stories". Since I was old enough to hear them (about 15 by his standards) he's been telling me these stories about his some 7000 hours of flight time in the Navy. Apparently you can get into all kinds of shit when you spend that much time in military aircraft. I've been asked not to recount any of what he did until he's dead (some of this shit makes you chew your nails and wonder how the hell we ever made it though the Cold War without a nuclear holocaust), but I can say that if you've never heard a grown man tell you how he won a farting contest in the cockpit of an airplane with 2 other grown men by eating pickled eggs and boiled hot dogs, then you have not lost control of a major sphincter because you were laughing so hard that you had to think about breathing before you could think about not shitting yourself.

Anyway, I made it to Harlingen with clean underpants (this time) and had a quick dinner that my step Mom, Irma, had ready for us when we arrived. I swear I feel like a king when I go home to Texas. The people are so different: ready to make you feel at home and pump you full of food and drink until you wonder if your colon can really handle another pound of beef (the answer is yes). I wander off to my nice, comfy guest bed and sleep at night for the first time in probably 2 years or so. I felt rested and much less cranky and now know why I don't really have a social life. I'm kind of a dick unless I sleep at night, and since I work at night........well, it's safe to say that's a lot of dick.

Dad and I spend a little time out in the back yard, having coffee and talking. It rained the night before after something like 65 days of not raining. This is only pertinent to me because I just left a place where it's uncommon for it to go 10 days with no rain, so I get sick of overcast skies and come to the dry south Texas wasteland in anticipation of clear skies........and yeah......tough shit. Oh yeah! Remember that time I went to live in Brazil for 4 months back in late 2004 and it freakin' SNOWED in south Texas for the first time in 100 freakin' years?! So not only do I miss all the cool ass shit that happens, but Mother Nature and the people on the Weather Channel be plottin' on me. You think I'm kidding, Reader? Just wait.......

On the next episode of Vacation Hard!: It's getting hot in here! So take off all your cloth---NO DAN!! You're in public!

"JUSTCOMEGETMEGODDAMNIT!!"