2:16 p.m. - 2002-05-07
Moving Vacation
Bruce and I just got back from a five day trip to Baltimore to pick up some furniture from his dad (now, if we only had a house to put it in!! Grrrrr!!! Hisss!!) It was a fairly uneventful trip, so I won't bore you with the blow by blow details. I'll just bore you with the highlights.

The first day of the trip was predictable. We drove along with me squealing things like "OOOOOOOOHHHHH! LOOOOOOOK! Mayfield Dairy Outlet Store!!" and "OOOOOOOHHHHHH! LOOOOOK! Explore Lost Sea Caverns and Gift Shop!" and Bruce ignoring me, except when he was making up funny slogans for the tourists traps like "LuRay Caverns: Come See The World's Largest Pile Of Bat Guano!"

The first night of our trip was spent, not in Baltimore as we had planned, but in a hotel somewhere in Virginia, where we stayed after I got spooked by us almost skidding off the road during an intense thunderstorm. Bruce woke me up the next morning by performing a nude Egyptian chorus line dance while singing "Bats In Bed! Doo DOO! Doo DOO! Bats Not Dead! Doo DOO! Doo DOO!" (He wakes me up this way quite often. He knows if he annoys me long enough I'll eventually get up and put my clothes on.)

The second night we stayed with his brother Brooke's family somewhere outside of Washington, DC. (I never actually know where I am.) Spent the evening telling them horrifying tales of househunting. Brooke made popovers for breakfast the next morning (mmmmmm....why does anyone eat croissants when popovers are much more delicious?) and I forgot my ring on their guest room bookcase and had a fit twelve hours later when I realised I'd left it behind.

Spent Saturday with Bruce's dad Bill and stepmom Allaire in Baltimore, moving furniture and picking up a U Haul trailer and moving more furniture and then even more furniture. Then collapsed watching Animal Planet while Allaire set up her brand new electric self-cleaning cat box. I'm not kidding. Bill and Allaire have two fabulously spoiled and tremendously overweight cats.

Went out to Cafe Hon for dinner, and along the way passed a sign advertising a fundraiser. "Shakespeare and Sausage" read the sign. "Watch Shakespeare's Finest Plays While Eating Authentic German Sausage!!" Now there's something you don't see every day.

At Cafe Hon I had catfish with a tomato sauce, which was lovely, and very strangely steamed snowpeas which were...steamy.

The next day drove as far as Tennessee. Stopped somewhere in....Virginia? to eat at a sad little truckstop with really terrible food. I had a hot turkey sandwich which was cold with yellow gravy, bright yellow, and turkey which was obviously the pressed kind from a can. And the saddest part was that the waitress was sweet and very concerned about if we were happy with the food and so I had to lie and tell her it was fine, I was just very tired and not so hungry. She insisted on giving me a go box so I could eat it later, but I couldn't face it and threw it away at the next rest area instead.

Stayed at a hotel in Tennessee, where I was entertained by two huge wild rabbits in the field next door. They were chasing each other around and around, probably having a territory struggle. When they realised I was watching them they stopped for a few seconds, stock still, but eventually decided I wasn't interested in eating them and started up again. I watched them for about 15 minutes till they disappeared into the woods.

Just after we started out the next morning Bruce told me he had realised something disturbing. "What's that?" I asked, innocently. "There's this big orange thing following us," he said, looking concerned. "It's been following us for the last 300 miles!" I looked around, frantic, expecting an evil Mac truck or something. As he started to laugh like a fiend I realised he was pulling my leg - we were, of course, hauling an orange U Haul trailer.

A couple of hours later we stopped for gas, and saw a large black animal in the road. I felt I couldn't leave it there and went over to pull it out, using my sweatshirt sleeves to cover my hands since I had no gloves. It was an enormous black cat, still warm, and as I pulled it up I saw a red streak of flesh at the side of its face where it had been hit. I couldn't help thinking of Kira, my big black girl who died of throat cancer a few years ago. The last time I held her she was as limp and heavy as this cat, her fur just as sleek. I found myself wondering if this cat, too, had a taste for tuna straight from the can. I laid her gently at the side of the road, hoping that whoever had fed her so well would find her and bury her. Walking back to the car I was careful to take off my sweatshirt inside out, putting it in the back of the truck, and then washing my hands in the grimy truckstop bathroom.

"You're a sweet bat, Ruthie" said Bruce when I came out. He gave me the strange smile he reserves for when I've done something he wouldn't have done himself but is rather touched by, nonetheless.

Bruce decided to cheer me up by stopping at the Russell Stover Candy Outlet which was just down the road. After all, there's no antidote for a sad interlude like cheap chocolate. The outlet was full of leftover Easter and Valentine's day candy and had platters full of free samples. After spending half an hour stuffing my face I bought a Pepe Le Peu sampler in a metal tin and a huge heart shaped box of Whitman's.

Almost home, we stopped at a truly grubby little Appalachian gas station. It reeked of alcohol, and the unisex bathroom was filled with sex aid dispensers. For a quarter you could buy small packets of Supa-Ribbed Condoms ("Feel The Pleasure!")and Desensitizing Creams ("Keep Her Happy All Night!!") and Hot Hot Hot Oil ("Warm Her Up!"). I couldn't resist putting a quarter in for a Naughty Nellie coin, which turned out to be a coin about the size of a quarter which had a woman's torso on one side, inscribed "Heads I Win" and a woman's bottom on the other that said "Tails You Lose". Amazingly, the women's faces were all different - a testament to how far feminism has gone in this country. Even on Naughty Nellie coins we are now individuals! No more faceless porno queens! Yessir, how far we women have come. Good Lord.

Anyway, I bought an extra Naughty Nellie for Simon. Perhaps she'll use it in some strange art piece.

Came home to find the cats had laid waste to our house, barfing everywhere and ripping up some cardboard boxes, and Burroughs had dragged my clean socks under the sofa and chewed holes in them, and the big pile of mail on the kitchen table contained nothing except credit card solicitations.

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