Dig Allen, Space Explorer

Once in awhile I am drawn to vintage teen literature. I guess my Trixie Belden reading past (which smoked Nancy Drew) causes me to wax sentimental when I stumble across any G-rated novel for yesterday’s youth.


This week I was browsing in a used bookstore and I came across a book that looked, at a glance, much like the old yellow-spined Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys books. This one, however, had a cover illustration of three boys and a grown man in spacesuits kneeling down and examining what appeared to be an elaborate city under ice. The title read “Lost City of Uranus,” and at the very top it said “A Dig Allen Space Explorer Adventure.” The copyright was 1962. I was immediately drawn to the nostalgia of 1960s sci-fi, a time of innocent wonder at space exploration before sophisticated cynicism, in my opinion, perverted much of sci-fi into the borderline horror of today.

The penciled-in price read 12.00, and even though that seemed a bit steep for Half-Priced Books, I took it to the counter along with two other books. I was startled when the lady said my total would be 7.00 +. I hesitated, wondering if I should count my blessings and run. But curiosity got the better of me and, pointing to the Dig Allen book, I asked, “How much was that?”

“1.00,” the lady said, opening the inside cover to have another look. “Oh no! “ she exclaimed. ”This is 12.00!” Of course, I expected her to reward my honesty, but instead she thanked me for it and charged me the correct amount.

Now feeling incredibly stupid, I paid for and took my purchase. As I explained the situation to my mom, mom suggested I ask the owner of the bookstore, who was currently behind the customer service counter, why this particular book was so much. The man explained that the Dig Allen series , of which there were six total, had been intended to be the new Hardy Boys. However, they had not sold well, and as a result there were only so few printed. That’s why my book cost so much.

Upon hearing this, Mom said to me, “Well, you just paid extra for a flop.” The man hastened to contradict her, but his explanation had already done the damage.

Feeling even more ridiculous, I left with mom. She encouraged me to return the book if I had reservations (and I really should have between the clerk not sticking to the price she originally named and the man explaining to me what a disaster the series had been), but I didn’t.

So last night I started the book, which I thought would be a quick and semi-delightful read, but so far it hasn’t captured me. However, the cover -- the boys in spacesuits exclaiming over a brilliant, extra-terrestrial city under ice – makes me very happy to look at. So I’m keeping it. And I WILL read it, since I paid for it. But from now on I will ASK why a book is so expensive, just in case it is, ironically, because nobody wanted it to begin with.

The Dance Nazi

I was not allowed to dance growing up. By the time my parents relaxed their belief in this doctrine, I had already grown into an adult who felt she had no ability to dance; so whenever the situation presented itself, I always shied away.

My first realization that I had at least a limited ability to dance came in my Jazzercise classes. Later, I took some line dancing classes and was told I was a natural. Eventually I took up Belly Dancing via an instructional video. The Belly Dancing prepared me for Zumba, a Latin dance workout at the gym where I met the challenges of more complicated foot and hip work. I do most of Zumba with confidence now, always as attentive to style and flair as I am technical precision. I was thrilled when a recent observer at Zumba told me I was the best she saw in the class. While Zumba may not be all that difficult, I’ve still come a long way and have figured my shy days are over.

However, my newfound confidence failed to prepare me for what I would face at a church benefit last night. Since my husband is out of town, I asked my cousin to go along, telling him there would be, among other things, wine tasting and line dancing. When the dance instructor brought us out to the floor, I expected line dancing instruction. Instead, she paired us off by gender and started teaching us basic ballroom dancing. When I realized I was going to learn this kind of dancing in front of a room full of people (most of them watching instead of dancing), I almost panicked. I always eventually get a new dance move down, but rarely while someone is watching. Oh well, at least I would be dancing with my cousin whom I don’t mind making a fool of myself in front of.

But that wasn’t the case either. My first partner was my priest. So putting the obvious irony aside with regards to my upbringing, the situation was made more complicated (in my mind) by the fact that he is already an expert ballroom dancer. I have never in my life danced with a partner. I went into a physical state resembling rigor mortis. Nobody but God knew the trepidation I felt, but I was flashing back to my fencing days when I would get hammered by the superior opponent with a roomful of other fencers watching.

But, as with fencing, I stuck it out and tried to learn. I made it through the Texas Two-step, but my nervousness prevented me from going beyond the most basic move. I realized how much more comfortable I am doing semi-striptease moves at Zumba. Go figure. Next came the East Coast Swing. I was dancing with my cousin by this time, and had relaxed somewhat, when suddenly some old lady I don’t even know came out of the dining area to speak into my ear. “Honey, don’t lift your feet so high. Just shift your weight from foot to foot and you won’t stand out so much.”

I mean, seriously, had somebody hired her? Was this blatant preying on my insecurity divine retribution for disregarding the doctrine of my youth? I thanked her and did exactly as she had said. I continued to dance, but every cell in my body was screaming at me to just sit down. After all, apparently I was “standing out.” I remembered the fencing strip, and I told myself I would get through this too and I would LIKE it.

However, at another point another woman whose face I can’t even place right now physically grabbed me out of the blue and got right in my face, saying: “If you would stop watching other people’s feet…” and proceeded to lecture me on my technique. By now I was aghast. Had I stepped into a parallel world where doctrine was to dance and dance correctly if you wished to enter the kingdom?

After the instruction was over, I went to hide against the wall and have a drink. When finished with my drink, I put the bottle in the trashcan. Right then, the first old lady, the one apparently hired by God to keep an eye on me, walked over to the trashcan, removed my bottle, looked directly at me as she lowered the bottle into a recycle box, and said, “The bottles go in here.”

Unfortunately, it doesn’t end there. A few minute later, the dance instructor and one of the men in the church were doing some fancy swing dancing, and everybody was watching. I was filming it on my phone, and just as it ended, this same old lady made her way over to me. “Honey, did you watch their feet while they were dancing?”

“No,” I said, my tone implying I had neither wished to watch their feet nor did I now wish to hear about their feet.

“Well,” she said, “They were not lifting them very high – they were just shifting their weight from side to side.”

“Yes,” I said, not bothering to hide my growing irritation, “I quit doing that when you told me to the first time.”

“Because when people do that,” she went on, “All it does is bounce their boobies.”

“Oh, is that what I was doing?” I asked wryly.

“No,” she said, then finished her commentary on the important of footwork and walked away.

“Thank you!” I called after her, assured by her obvious lack of perception that my sarcasm went undetected.

Matt was already doubled in laughter, his head having been turned away from her.

I won’t even go into the jokes we shared the rest of the evening, most of them about bouncing boobies, which Matt said should be the name of the dance studio she really ought to open one day, with all her knowledge.

I think the greatest feat I accomplished last night was just sticking with it and trying to have fun, despite the busy bodies that harassed me. I am certain they meant well, but I suspect that the first person to declare dancing a sin must have had an experience similar to mine.

A weirder kind of Deja Vu

Recently I was typing an email to somebody about a really unpleasant situation I had run into last week. As I explained how I had been verbally attacked by a woman I barely know, I had a moment of deja vu in which I suddenly remembered that my friend Becka had experienced that same thing about a year go and had told me about it. In fact, I remembered her telling me that she had had to take the same steps I was taking to defend herself from this person's venom. She had emailed, just as I was... I could remember her enthusiasm as she told me, and when I tried to remember the specifics of her situation, I happened to look up at the TV and something seemed familiar about what it was showing, and then the feeling faded. Suddenly, it was as if none of that memory of Becka had happened. I tried to recapture the memory, but it was simply nonexistent. Nothing like that had happened to Becka, not that she had ever told me anyway. The entire "memory" had been a deja vu.

I was mystified. Deja vu normally makes present events seem like they have already taken place for you, not for somebody else.

Fast Food and the Breakdown in Communication

I just went through DQ for my favorite treat -- a Brownie Batter Blizzard. The girl came over the speaker and asked for my order.

I said, "I would like a Brownie Batter Blizzard, please."
She said something that I couldn't quite hear, but I figured she was asking what size, since I had forgotten to say.

"I would like a small one, please." I said.

"So, that's one medium and one small Brownie Batter Blizzard?" she asked.

"No, I'm sorry," I said, realizing that she had probably asked if I had wanted anything else. "I just want ONE, SMALL, Brownie Batter Blizzard."

She gave me my total and told me to pull to the second window. When I got to the second window, she said, "So that's one Medium Brownie Batter blizzard?"

I looked at her a second, then repeated in the exact same way I had just said it 15 seconds ago, "No, I would like one small Brownie Batter Blizzard."

She looked a tad distressed, and that's when I saw that the girl behind her was already filling a medium cup up with ice cream. I gave up. "I'll just take a medium, that's fine." I said. Apparently it was important to them that I eat a medium blizzard today. I really shouldn't let them down.

Then the girl at the window indicated to the girl filling up my blizzard, "She says you used to be her English teacher." I took a second look at my former student and greeted her.

Then the girl said, "She can't speak good English," to which I laughed good naturedly, and she shut the window overcome with giggles at having teased her friend. (I refrained from telling her that perhaps the problem was she couldn't understand English.)

All was pleasant as I completed my transaction, and my blizzard was delicious. However, while I realize that we did have a miscommunication at first, I nevertheless feel that we are running out of options when it comes to communication these days. It used to be that we relied on the spoken word, but that seems to be failing us. Dairy Queen isn't the first -- nor will it be the last -- place to get my very simple order wrong. Whataburger just about grinds to a halt when I ask for a plain dry cheeseburger with jalapenos. They can't resist just dabbing a little mustard on it. They just can't fathom that I mean what I say. Or perhaps they aren't listening, or maybe they disagree with my choice of food and they have a better idea.

One of these days, we are just going to have to bring hand puppets along and act out a skit for the benefit of the fast food staff. One puppet will ask for a small blizzard, then the other puppet will try to prepare a medium blizzard. Then the first puppet will pull out three different blizzard cup sizes and sing a song about small, medium, and large, until the other puppet understands and even sings the chorus himself. Once the staff can sing along, I will know they understand, and I'll get what I ordered.

That's what we are going to have to do eventually to get good service.

Houston, we have a problem.

As always, I must pay homage to a terrible day – two actually – even though they were somebody else’s terrible days.

Yesterday began a two-day nightmare for my cousin Matthew. He tried to board a plane to Israel only to discover that his passport, which was due to expire in less than six months, was not acceptable. The group he was flying with left without him. But let me back up about 6 hours…

Yesterday morning, Matthew was in his apartment on his phone, probably talking to his girlfriend and anticipating his drive to the airport. Suddenly, his front door opened and in walked a stranger, key in hand. They both stared at each other in shock. Turns out the property management company for Matt’s apartment had advertised that his side of the duplex was for rent and given the key to a hopeful client. After awkward explanations were exchanged, Matt drove to the property management place and administered a well-deserved lecture.

It was several hours later that Matt would find himself returning home with his luggage, his friends en route to Tel-Aviv. I had just returned home from taking my dad to the airport for the very flight Matt had just missed when I got a call from my brother Bryan. Bryan, who had been Matt’s ride home from the airport, was driving a borrowed truck. He had been unaware that this truck’s gas meter was broken, until it ran out of gas miles from their destination. Bryan and Matt were now sitting on the side of the road in 106 degree weather. Fortunately, they were only 25 minutes from me.

I rescued them with a gas can, and returned home. Meanwhile, it was determined that Matt would apply for an emergency passport in Houston today and hopefully catch a flight this evening. Getting very used to feeling useful, I offered to drive him. (He had done the same for us on our recent trip to the UK.)

We left my house at 4:30 this morning and arrived at the passport office sometime after 9:00. When it was Matt’s turn at the passport office window, he could barely get his request in before the lady proceeded to lecture him in the rudest manner I have ever witnessed from somebody in a professional setting. She literally rolled her eyes in disgust every time he tried to explain himself. “How long have you known about this trip, sir?...Six months! You had six months…!” And on she went until Matthew was stunned silent and I was ready to go through the window and throttle her, security guards be damned. Matthew is easily the most prepared person – next to my husband – that I know. Had he known that a passport due to expire in four months is considered already expired, had he not used the logic that comes so easily to him which told him that the expiration date is exactly that – an expiration date, he would have had his passport renewed. This lady knew nothing, yet she talked down to him in the most demeaning way. (Think Madea from “Madea’s Family Reunion” without the humor.) The only thing stopping me from telling her off was the fact that Matt was at her mercy.

When she walked away for a moment, I said to Matthew, who had turned very red, “Pray. Just pray. She is out of line.” Then I proceeded to do the same, but when I did, my anger increased until I had to stop and apologize to God for the turn my prayers had started to take.

The lady returned to inform Matt that had he been issued new tickets from Delta, she could have given him a passport today. But he hadn’t. Matt staggered. Delta had told him the very opposite – that he could not get new tickets until he got a new passport. In the end, she told him the soonest he could have his passport was tomorrow at 2:30. This Israel trip is to be 10 days only. Matt had now lost two of them. We were also going to have to find lodging.

We returned to the car where Matt made several calls, meeting with frustration at every turn: Delta said they needed to hear from Matt’s travel agency, but when he called the travel agency he only got the voicemail. He finally managed to reach his travel agent (who is currently in Jerusalem with the group) only to end up having to yell over the singing of a choir halfway through the conversation. It was so loud I could hear it. By now, he was literally shaking. Meanwhile, I sat next to him brainstorming ways to coerce Delta, who had failed to issue him tickets, into paying for our lodging, and to get the lady at the passport office fired. We both sat consumed with our plans until he finally reached Delta.

By the end of Matt’s incredibly long phone ordeal, he had learned that all Wednesday flights were booked and he would have to take a Thursday flight. Now he was missing three days of the trip, but he seemed calmer, because, frankly, I think he had run out of energy to care. I temporarily abandoned my plans for revenge and we went to find a place to eat.

We agreed it was essential that beer be part of our meal, so I searched for breweries in my GPS system. That started the next nightmare, as my GPS system led us in a maze only to end up at a closed brewery. I entered another brewery, and this time we were led through even more of a maze across the city. (We had driven in a similar fashion to find a Starbucks earlier in the morning, and never had found it.)

I finally said: “Watch us end up back at the passport office with the brewery right behind us.”

Matt replied: “That lady from the office will be standing there tapping her foot, saying ‘Not today. Just keep on drivin’.”

We both collapsed into laughter, and I felt my anger fading. By making this lady a caricature, Matt had extinguished my anger in a way prayer couldn’t. God can use anything, including humor, to set our hearts right again. We finally found an open brewery, but it took about as long to find a place to park.

We enjoyed a delicious meal and an I.P.A. beer. Matt talked to his girlfriend for a bit while I read my book, and we left feeling refreshed. We could now head home, as Matt had decided it would be more expensive to find lodging. The plan was (and still is): he will return tomorrow for his passport, and Thursday I will drive him to Austin for his flight.

Now we were in the parking garage, but could not find our car. We ended up looking on every floor (of which there were only four, fortunately) and found it at last. Surely, this was the last hurdle.

Of course it wasn’t. At some point, we realized we were almost out of gas; in fact, the needle had passed the last notch and was almost on the ‘E’ itself. I search for gas stations in my GPS and it showed that one was very close, just a straight shot down the road. However, when we turned the car to exit the parking lot we had pulled into temporarily, the GPS got confused and told us to take a turn. I should have said something – I noticed that the map still showed just a straight shot – but after a U-turn and a long drive to the next exit, we ended up literally feet from where we had been. It was like the fates were nothing but cruel. But at least we had made it. And I had to use the bathroom after the beer and then the Starbucks we had finally found.

I walked into the bathroom and thought there must be some mistake – we had taken a wrong turn and ended up on the backside of hell. I have never seen such a horrific looking bathroom in my life. Even had it been clean it was an eyesore, with rust and mold and cracks and holes, the walls and floor protruding in places as if possessed. Somebody had attempted to flush the toilet at some point and not succeeded…and that’s all I will say about that. I made a concerted effort not to touch, look at or even think about anything in that bathroom, lest I become contaminated.

Once I made my escape, I hurried to the car and dug for my Purell. After slathering on, I rubbed some on the door handle and even on the things I had pulled from my purse to find the Purell. Just as I replaced it, Matthew got in the car. “That was the worst bathroom I’ve ever seen –“ I began.

“So was mine – I need the Purell!” He threw his hand out, looking straight ahead as if recovering from fresh trauma.

We briefly rued the bathroom’s condition, but there was little more to say, and we lapsed into wordless horror until we recovered.

Eventually, we were chatting and laughing again, but then Matt got on the phone with his girlfriend, allowing my mind to drift, and I ended up missing an exit. I got off the next exit and came to a fork in the road, during which time Matt, still on the phone, said, “Circle! Circle!”

“Circle” meant nothing to me, as I wasn’t sure which road made a circle. “Left” or “right” would have sufficed. I went left, and that’s when Matt got off the phone and made me get out of the driver’s seat.

But we made it, safely, and in the end that’s what counts. Matt goes back to Houston tomorrow, and flies out Thursday, so keep him in your prayers.

The Power of Literature

As a youth, I not only read the literature I was assigned in my English classes, I was often deeply moved by it. I remember being riveted to Where the Red Fern Grows in 6th grade, moved to write poetry about Pip and Estella during Great Expectations in 9th grade, and secretly crying over Hester Prynne and Rev. Dimmesdale at the end of The Scarlet Letter in 11th grade. (OK, I was kind of a nerd, but only in my English classes; I was quite the slacker in most other classes -- until college.)

But of all our assigned readings, it was the novel Of Mice and Men that impacted me into my adulthood. Being an animal lover, I was terribly upset when Candy's dog was shot. And when Candy later said to George that he should have shot his dog himself, I remember trying to understand why he said that. I am not sure why the meaning evaded me; After all, I was, in my humble opinion, reasonably intelligent, but I knew I wasn't fully getting it somehow. Perhaps it was because it had never occurred to my young mind that sometimes one had to perform unpleasant tasks out of kindness. After all, I lived a lifestyle in which other people performed unpleasant tasks: if an animal needed put down, you took it to the vet. And I had never had to make a hard decision along those lines.

Instead of asking my teacher or anyone else for an explanation, I contemplated Candy's statement for a long time. I honestly can't remember if I reached a better understanding once we reached the end of the book and the situation was parallelled when George shot Lennie (I hope I did), but as I grew older, I remember the meaning of the phrase becoming clearer and clearer to me. Of course I understood that it was better to die by the hand of a kind friend than an uncaring stranger, but besides that, I decided that as a pet owner (which is as close as I'll ever come to being a parent), I had a responsibility to be with my pet until the very end. Candy's words imprinted their truth on my heart and mind long before I would experience that truth myself.

But I finally did have to experience it when my first rat Horace came down with cancer. Horace was not only my first rat, but the first pet I would feel extremely close to, as anyone familiar with pet rats can understand. He sought my company so eagerly every day (despite having three cagemates) that whenever I happened to move within a couple feet of my bed -- on which I had a playground set up daily for roaming time -- Horace would leap through the air onto my back and scramble on up to my shoulder, where he would have peferred to ride all day if he could. I would answer the door to delivery men etc. with Horace perched happily atop my shoulder. We were as attached as any pet and owner could be. The day I realized I had done all I could do and was going to have to put him down, my convictions, thanks to Steinbeck, had long been set that I would see it through to the end.

I had been warned by my vet tech. that the vet usually didn't allow the owner present when putting down a rodent. They would sedate the animal first (through a mask), then plunge a needle into its heart to stop it. Sometimes blood would shoot high into the air and this would traumatize the owner. I walked into the vet prepared to put up a fight. I didn't care of I got splattered with blood -- Horace would have me by his side to the last. The vet, however, after a year of watching me withstand other graphic procedures (draining abcesses, cleaning them myself, giving shots, etc.) knew I was not fainthearted. So I was allowed into the back room, and I fixed my eyes on my darling little Horace. I watched everything, I watched the needle go in and I watched the last little beat of his heart. I could not allow myself to do any less for him, short of doing the procedure myself.

I was heartbroken. I am not a morbid person. In fact, I have such an aversion to emotional pain that I no longer have rats. Five years of loving and losing these most amazing creatures took its toll one my animal-loving heart. But I was able to withstand the death of my Horace because of the conviction that one line of literature had placed in my impressionable mind so many years ago.

Richie and I went to interview another witness to a UFO sighting today. He wanted us to meet him at a Vietnamese restaurant. Our witness, whom I will call Mr. G, was eating when we arrived, but we just wanted drinks for now. I ordered water and coffee.

"Iced coffee or hot?" The server asked. Iced coffee? I thought. Gross. Wasn't it obvious I was a sophisticated coffee drinker who didn't need to mask the flavor by turning it into a milk shake, for heaven's sake?

"Hot." I said politely.

We made some small talk with Mr. G, discussing music and other interests, before getting down to business. In the meantime, the server returned with my coffee. She set before me a tall glass with what appeared to be an inch of cream at the bottom. There was also a spoon and a straw, and on the very top of the class perched an espresso-sized silver pot with a spout. Very dark coffee was slowly dripping from the bottom of the pot into my glass, mixing with the cream at the bottom. I watched it for a moment in uncertainty, then tentatively lifted the lid of the pot and peered in. It was still half full of coffee.

Mr. G, who was watching me, began laughing. I looked up self-consciously. "I'm not sure what to do." I said. I replaced the lid, assuming I should wait for the coffee to finish dripping into my glass.

However, it was taking a very long time, and even had I let it completely empty into my glass, it would have been only the most miniscule amount of coffee. I became increasingly confused when I noticed that the server had also placed a tall, lidded, plastic travel mug next to the glass of cream. I picked it up. It was hot. What was in here, I wondered. Maybe the server hadn't left it after all; maybe it had been left by a customer. I inspected the edge for signs of lipstick, then, with difficulty, tried to pry the lid off. Mr. G. began laughing again. At last the lid gave, and I discovered the travel mug contained hot water.

Now I looked from the mug of hot water to the glass of cream with coffee slowly dripping from the silver pot. I was bewildered and couldn't wait any longer. I signaled the server. "What do I do?" I asked, pointing to the glass and mug.

She regarded the glass with a slight smile. "You mix the coffee with the cream, and then you put ice in it. It's better with ice."

Better with ice? What was with this woman and iced coffee? Fine, I gave up and agreed to the ice, which she brought with delight. That still didn't answer the question of what to do with the mug of water, but I wasn't going to ask yet a second question in this ridiculously complicated ordeal. I let the coffee drip a little longer, then removed the siliver pot, and set it on top of the mug of water so it would drip the remaining coffee into there without making a mess. Then I mixed the coffee in my glass into the cream at the bottom, and found the cream was extremly thick, like sweetened condensed milk. It made a luscious looking rich brown color, and I sipped some through the straw. Oh wow. It was sweet, but it was delicious. I had Richie taste some. Mr. G. was watching all this go down, I have no doubt, with almost as much interest as he had watched the UFO last week.

Before pouring the ice in, I realized I would need water to fill the glass up, and that is when the tall travel mug made sense. So I removed the dripping silver pot from the travel mug long enough to pour in some water (which now contained some coffee), then I added ice. It made a wonderful, sweet cool drink.

And that was my first experience with Vietnamese iced coffee. Apparently, Mr. G. goes there all the time and likes the coffee. I can't imagine why he didn't offer to help me out...

Thank you, Bugs Bunny

My cousin Matthew and I were just ruminating the phenomenon of finding exactly what you need when you need it. We got on this topic after noting how our friend Dana just happens to have the oddest bits of information stored in her mind for just that moment when you will ask. (Most recently, I mentioned aloud that I need to find some coyote skulls for a certain project, and Dana immediately recalled a taxidermy place in Sulphur Creek.) Likewise, I have always marveled at the memory of finding a shovel just feet away from a burning house that I needed to break a window to so I could rescue a dog inside. (Turns out there was no dog inside, but the shovel was there when I thought I needed it, nonetheless.) The best example, however, comes from Mock's Variety store, a tiny little dump within the small town of Parker City, Indiana. Mock's had nothing except exactly what you needed at the time -- for me it was an eye dropper one day to feed an orphaned baby bird. Another day it was a bag of Funyuns when I was craving Funyuns. My mom had the same experience, and was the first to point out this unique quality of Mock's. It may not have milk or bread, but by God, if you needed a self-adhesive bookplate with penguins on it, Mock's would certainly have it.

We have decided that Bugs Bunny must have worked in the backroom at Mock's Variety Store. After all, Bugs was famous for, among other things, being able to produce a pair of scissors or a butterfly net -- whatever was required -- from his magical, unseen pocket. Bugs Bunny could indeed be behind all such phenomena, and so, as Matthew ended our conversation, "Thank you, Bugs Bunny."

Digger

While driving to town recently, I saw this delightful sight out my window. I hope the driver wouldn't mind, but it brought a smile to my face and I sneaked a picture at the stoplight. Digger sat up for the occasion, but preferred to lie low when moving at normal speed.