The trip was ... interesting.
We spent Friday night in our friend's backyard, which was full of... interesting junk-- tires, a plywood skateboard ramp on which someone (probably Jerri Jean) had spray-painted in horrific childish scrawl "Jerri Jean L(heart)'s TODD", broken bottles, a huge Elizabeth Arden cosmetics display case (all the E's were missing), two very nice cedar chairs that we utlilized, a smelly rotting futon matress, a pile of firewood... we set up our tent on the one small patch of grass (the rest was concrete). R had cleared a small area for boxing practice, had a sparring bag & an inflated punching bag which were too much fun. I can kick above my head with surprising force.
The house was cool, built in the 1880s, three stories tall with a tower, originally a carriage house. Nooks & crannies & spongy floor & big pigeons roosted in the balcony garden, no foundation, lots of stolen junk in the greenhouse from the previous tenants. R had cleaned up a lot of stuff but said the landlord was not willing to haul the junk away. Car alarms went off all night long. I didn't sleep well.
The tweaker girlie who came waltzing into the backyard about one in the morning searching for Todd ended up talking to R through his window high above. She was loaded like a gun, speaking so fast her words all ran together "ohmygawdisthata spiralSTAIRCASE? Doyouthinkit's like historicaltothehousewhat ahhh GREAT fuckinghousedudeheyis TODD here? Oh,he'sinPRISON?shitdudeIdidn't HEAR aboutthatatallwhendidthatHAPPEN ohwellIcan'tbelieveit guesshefuckedup yeahokay sowillhebeback?" on and on with R just sort of grunting and frowning at her the whole time. She finally left and we all giggled with raised eyebrows about it and locked the gate.
The next night we went to a community park in Manila, and... well, anyone who says the economy is improving should be forced to walk from one end of town to the other. It was like a third world, skinny grubby little sunburned children, destitute people living in junked out burned out cars & tin shacks, more NO PARKING signs than I could spit at, chain-link fences everywhere. Grapes of Wrath revisited. It was down on the mud flat penninsula, a long spit of malarial swampland between Humboldt Bay and the Pacific. We thought it would be decent when R said it was "by the beach" but he failed to mention the sewage treatment plant or what sounded like a shooting range or all the stray dogs.
The "campground" was smaller than my backyard on the scrubby windy flats, and we fit eight tents on it. Good thing we all like each other and I think everyone imbibed enough so nobody noticed anyone else snoring. It felt very cramped to me. I like privacy and I'm decidedly anti-social. To one side was an abandoned mobile home, to the other side was a trailer that housed three too-skinny teenage boys and their parents and a very healthy-looking pit bull. I didn't ask but I'm pretty sure they were selling stuff and we kept our cars all locked. The pickup to pull the trailer had two flat tires and was full of garbage.
The bathroom on the other side of the park consisted of one working toilet and a cold-water sink that drained onto the floor. I was less than appreciative of the situation, although it was fun seeing all the college crowd again, & the food was great; fish tacos, Cuban-fried chicken, potato salad... Yum. Our dogs liked the attention from everyone. It was "camping" insofar as we slept in a tent and cooked outside, but it was extremely uncivilized in the worst ways. At least we had a keg of microbrew beer, & didn't run out of wine. I think next year we'll petition for R to have his birthday party half an hour farther north along the coast, away away away, elbow room.
On the plus side S & I were very happy to return to the land of green shadows and big trees and deep dark rivers and rocks covered with moss. My heart is here.
We spent Friday night in our friend's backyard, which was full of... interesting junk-- tires, a plywood skateboard ramp on which someone (probably Jerri Jean) had spray-painted in horrific childish scrawl "Jerri Jean L(heart)'s TODD", broken bottles, a huge Elizabeth Arden cosmetics display case (all the E's were missing), two very nice cedar chairs that we utlilized, a smelly rotting futon matress, a pile of firewood... we set up our tent on the one small patch of grass (the rest was concrete). R had cleared a small area for boxing practice, had a sparring bag & an inflated punching bag which were too much fun. I can kick above my head with surprising force.
The house was cool, built in the 1880s, three stories tall with a tower, originally a carriage house. Nooks & crannies & spongy floor & big pigeons roosted in the balcony garden, no foundation, lots of stolen junk in the greenhouse from the previous tenants. R had cleaned up a lot of stuff but said the landlord was not willing to haul the junk away. Car alarms went off all night long. I didn't sleep well.
The tweaker girlie who came waltzing into the backyard about one in the morning searching for Todd ended up talking to R through his window high above. She was loaded like a gun, speaking so fast her words all ran together "ohmygawdisthata spiralSTAIRCASE? Doyouthinkit's like historicaltothehousewhat ahhh GREAT fuckinghousedudeheyis TODD here? Oh,he'sinPRISON?shitdudeIdidn't HEAR aboutthatatallwhendidthatHAPPEN ohwellIcan'tbelieveit guesshefuckedup yeahokay sowillhebeback?" on and on with R just sort of grunting and frowning at her the whole time. She finally left and we all giggled with raised eyebrows about it and locked the gate.
The next night we went to a community park in Manila, and... well, anyone who says the economy is improving should be forced to walk from one end of town to the other. It was like a third world, skinny grubby little sunburned children, destitute people living in junked out burned out cars & tin shacks, more NO PARKING signs than I could spit at, chain-link fences everywhere. Grapes of Wrath revisited. It was down on the mud flat penninsula, a long spit of malarial swampland between Humboldt Bay and the Pacific. We thought it would be decent when R said it was "by the beach" but he failed to mention the sewage treatment plant or what sounded like a shooting range or all the stray dogs.
The "campground" was smaller than my backyard on the scrubby windy flats, and we fit eight tents on it. Good thing we all like each other and I think everyone imbibed enough so nobody noticed anyone else snoring. It felt very cramped to me. I like privacy and I'm decidedly anti-social. To one side was an abandoned mobile home, to the other side was a trailer that housed three too-skinny teenage boys and their parents and a very healthy-looking pit bull. I didn't ask but I'm pretty sure they were selling stuff and we kept our cars all locked. The pickup to pull the trailer had two flat tires and was full of garbage.
The bathroom on the other side of the park consisted of one working toilet and a cold-water sink that drained onto the floor. I was less than appreciative of the situation, although it was fun seeing all the college crowd again, & the food was great; fish tacos, Cuban-fried chicken, potato salad... Yum. Our dogs liked the attention from everyone. It was "camping" insofar as we slept in a tent and cooked outside, but it was extremely uncivilized in the worst ways. At least we had a keg of microbrew beer, & didn't run out of wine. I think next year we'll petition for R to have his birthday party half an hour farther north along the coast, away away away, elbow room.
On the plus side S & I were very happy to return to the land of green shadows and big trees and deep dark rivers and rocks covered with moss. My heart is here.
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