And We're Back

Pictured Above: The Boy, keeping an excessively safe following distance behind me on the I-80 West somewhere in NV, 2009

The trip back to the edge of the Western world was a resounding success. No auto accidents, no speeding tickets and no one robbed or maimed us for sport or for profit (but there's plenty of opportunity for this last one in Oakland). Though I was too busy driving the hell out of the 16' Penske truck pictured above to notice anything except my quickening pulse, K reports that plastic bottles and jugs of urine littered the shoulders of I-80 from IA to, well, as luck would have it, our front lawn (long story; did I mention we live in Oakland?). A quick Google search revealed that these 'pee bombs' were not driving-induced phantasmagorias, but evidence of a particularly vulgar practice favored by long-haul truckers.

Perhaps sitting in the presence of one's own urine is more macabre than it sounds?

OH NO HE DIDNT

Pictured Above: Actual crime scene (not a re-enactment or dramatization)

The incoming tenant hired local movers to bring her belongings to our house today in preparation for her Aug. 1 move-in. All was going well until one of the movers suddenly inquired with The Boy about the possibility of using our loo. I sensed a familiar urgency in the man's voice, and knew right then that he was going to disrespect our bathroom.

Minutes passed into quarter hours as he rather loudly labored away, and I made a mental note to assign TB to Hazmat duty upon our visitors' departure. Acknowledging that this was indeed his fault, TB graciously agreed, and though he did not find 'redrum' smeared all over the walls in human feces like I had imagined he would, he did find my freshly-laundered bath towel balled up against the floor register with a single piece of unused Kleenex jammed between the two.

Yes, gentle reader, it would appear that a stranger not only used my towel, but cast it to the well-trodden ground in a vain attempt to ABSORB THE WRETCHED STENCH OF HIS EXCREMENT so that it wouldn't make its way through the vent and into the basement where his colleagues were working.

Now, I ask you: Is there no greater injustice?

It's Going To Be Boyz-II-Men-Hard To Say Goodbye To These Two

Pictured Above: My two best (and only) hook-ups in Iowa City.

Back to the State of Theory (with apologies to Derrida)

Oakland, 2004

I-80 East, 2004

en route to Iowa, 2004

Our first laugh at Iowa's version of 7/11

Our five-year sojourn in Iowa is nearly concluded. We survived a 500-year flood, an F2 tornado and an 'active shooter.' Can't wait to get back to Oakland, CA where the livin' is easy and the causes of pre-mature death are generally far less biblical.