Another Day, Another Dino

Oh the carnage!
I really love this picture, it makes me smile, a lot!

I hope you don't mind the occasional random Dino pic, I just have to show you them all and there are so, so many.  Anyway....

When last we left our heroes, Renee had actually cleaned the bug guts from her car's front windshield.  This was a feat of epic proportion and if you are just sitting there thinking, "Renee you are a pantie waste if you think that washing a car window is epic."  OK, OK!  I guess I am a pantie waste because it IS epic and I will elucidate on this a little.

In 1988 I moved to San Jose, California.  Most of the state of California is a desert that has been re-hydrated, so drought conditions really are the norm over there.  We had reminders to conserve water like, "If it's yellow, let it mellow.  If it's brown, flush it down."  I still cringe when I hear those words, I will explain that some other time.  ~Cringe~  To make a long story short, I lived in California for 7+ years and can count on one hand the number of times I washed my car and I never cleaned my windows unless I was washing my car.  This does not count using the windshield wipers which really just swirled the dirt around on the window anyway (I don't remember needing to change them while I lived in Cali, maybe that is why they didn't work so great). 

My parents came to visit me and my dad became obsessed with the lack of visual acuity when operating the aforementioned vehicle, and he never drove the car.  He resisted as long as he could and then one faithful morning he could stand it no more!  He went and bought a bottle of Windex and some (a lot) of paper towels and I found him scrubbing my windows and talking to himself "Oh, much safer, much better.  How could she drive without being able to see where she was going?  That is just dangerous! Now look at those.  Clean.  Beautiful!"  Since that sad day, my father has a small area of his brain that becomes Gollum like around dirty windows, but I allow him to clean them if he needs to.  "Smeagol will clean my precious.  Safety.  Lovely.  My precious."  So now you understand.

Enough about my poor Smeagol father.

Back to the trip.

OK, so we had learned about far more dinosaurs than I really wanted but we had a good time.  Onward!!  To Memphis!!  I had a little headache when I woke up that morning and attempted to lavage my sorrows away.  It didn't work.  As I drove, my face began a conversation with my brain that was, well, not very nice at all.  After a few hours on the road, my face had convinced my brain that it needed to be removed and it needed to happen RIGHT NOW!  I don't remember experiencing this kind of pain ever!  I was fighting the urge to rip my face off.  I needed a frickin' doctor.

I have pictures of my ER visit so enjoy a Dino

As many of you may know, this type of pain and or discomfort NEVER happen when it is convenient.  So I want to rip my face off and it is Sunday July 4th in rural Tennessee.  "TAKE ME NOW!"  Paul and Max had fallen asleep when I veered sharply off of the road to follow a hospital sign I had seen (through my clean windshield) on the highway.  Dickson, TN is where I landed in the ER.  This is a funny thing to say, but I felt like I got much more comforting care at this hospital but I think as wonderful as they were, the accent is somehow more......homelike.  I was "Honey", "Darlin", "Sugar", "Sweetie", with a "Baby" for good measure.  All of those southern accented, terms of the familiar made me feel a little better as I paced the room and fought to keep my face on.  Enter Dr. Fatseas.  Let me say that again.  Dr. Fatseas.  Yes, my doctor had an unusual name but I have to say that I have had worse.  Dr, Manlove for example.  If people use to take their last names from the occupation of their father, this is a little more than I wanted to know about my doctor's family.

Warning: The following paragraph will contain personal and political opinions expressed by this writer.  If you don't agree with my opinions or you think they will make you upset, please suck it up for the next few lines.

More Dinos

Blah, Blah, Blah.  Flash forward to me sitting at the window where the homey southern woman is asking me for my insurance.  "Alright sweetie, I just need to get a little of your information.  Who is your insurance carrier?"  I prepared myself for all of the forlorn looks that I have come to associate with telling someone that you are indeed, uninsured.  To most people, uninsured means that you have no job, are living on the edge of collapse, are in desperate need of public assistance programs and should be assisted in applying for various governmental programs because you are so destitute.  I understand this stereotype but I think that now is the time to work on breaking it.  My family happens to fall into the hole that I hope that our current administration is working to fill.  We make too much to qualify for the programs that can help us with the insurance coverage that I can't get through my employer, but don't make enough to be able to afford the crazy high prices of insurance purchased on the open market.  My mortgage is far less per month then the cost of very high deductible insurance for all  three of us.  So there ya go.  "I am Uninsured"

LOOK OUT! 

Now, you will understand why, when I walked out of the ER in Dickson, TN and I paid the bill in full with $80, I was ecstatic.  Then I walked across the street to CVS where I had to fill my prescription ($158 for 20 pills) and walked out of there for $32.  The gods were smiling on me and my face.  I got to keep my face, my money, my sanity, and my date with BBQ in Memphis!  Thank you to all of the gods who contributed to this event and the positive outcome.

 With Paul driving, I popped my Lortab painkiller and settled in for a pleasant ride.  At this point I used my iPhone to create a mobile post for this blog.  You can see it here but I warn you that I really was kind of loopy, so it was good that I had to type on a tiny phone screen otherwise who knows what I would have posted.  I really do hate being in the passenger seat of my own car, but I was doped up enough to be alright with it.

 

 MEMPHIS!!

Well technically it is Eads, Tennessee but it was our final destination and we made it.  Here we found family, food, fun, puppies, bouncing, reminiscing, swimming, kayaking, fishing and so much more I need to sit down.

Let me tell you a little about fishing.

There is a beautiful pond on the property and Max and Paul tried their hands at fishing.  Max had a bamboo pole and after being loaded up with stinky old chicken livers, he sat patiently waiting for the fish to "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"  There it was, the first bite, of the first fish that Max would ever catch.  His excitement powered his response and he proceeded to launch that poor little bluegill, now imitating a bird of sorts, into a high arc bounded only by the length of line that he had on his pole.  Luckily, fish bounce a little and he survived the fall.

Max caught a bluegill and Paul helped him with the catfish.  Now what?







My cousin, Ann, is married to John and he is the purveyor of this pond of plenty.  He showed Max how to clean and fillet the fish and with it came great words of wisdom and lessons that I don't think that Max will forget.  Max got to see the stinky chicken liver in the belly of his bluegill and was taught to feel privileged to return the fish carcasses to the pond for the turtles.  He learned that you need to treat living things with respect even when they are dead.  The next step in the process of "Pond to Plate" was to cook those babies up!  I want to thank John again for being willing to take the time to answer Max's curiosity about the whole shebang!  Thanks to John, Max now knows how to bread and fry the fish.  Max learned the eating part on his own, though he needed some encouragement with the catfish.  Putting his new lessons into practice, Max ate all of the fish, even the kind he didn't like, out of reverence for the life that he took to be able to enjoy everything he just experienced.

30 minutes from Pond to your Plate

So the day wore on and the many faces that I had not seen in years, all became familiar again.  Most of the people were not much different then I remember them to be, maybe a little older and wiser.  The Eads home was comfortable and homey and filled with wonderful, kind, funny people who I am so glad I got to see again.  I am penciling on my calendar, "Memphis in July", crazy but true.  Here are a few more of the photos from that day.

It was THIS big!

Max and his fish out for a walk

Whew!  We were all exhausted and we climbed into the cozy beds to prepare for another day of adventure, without the fish.






A couple more Dinos for good measure.  How about some babies?