Off the Road Again

The thing is, I'm not picky. At my last job, I was always thrilled at the prospect of field work. It's so fun to get out, drive for a while, and end up somewhere new and different - don't you think?

In my current position, a work trip entails hours of browsing museums, historic homes, beaches, parks, aquariums, art exhibits, and other attractions, not to mention meeting lots of fun new people. Isn't that wonderful? But it's all icing as far as I'm concerned. I adored traveling for work even when it just meant going to Yoakum to examine pavement.

Last night I came home from a whirlwind two-day trip to Corpus Christi, my old stomping grounds, to begin the process of planning our big 2010 conference. Naturally, our contact in Corpus is familiar with my old, evil Corpus employer. Naturally, our contact in Corpus doesn't think too highly of my old, evil Corpus employer. Naturally, Corpus being the small town it is (despite its almost 300,000 residents), our Corpus contact also knows many of my former-coworker-still-friends in the area. It made for some fairly lively conversation as we drove from attraction to attraction. It's a small world, when you work in the travel industry: everybody knows everyone. So it's a darn good thing I actually am a reasonably nice person!

The trip was tremendous fun. I can hardly wait for next year's conference! I have to say, our hospitality suite setup is a lot nicer than the one we had last April. This probably means I won't be getting quite as much sleep, next time around. What the hell, conference is only a week long, and there are much more interesting things you can be doing, at any given moment, than sleeping. Such as examining pavement!

As much fun stuff as there is to see and do in Corpus (and I'll have to put those pictures up in Photobucket and post a link tomorrow), the most surreal moment of our trip came last night, when we stopped for dinner in Kenedy. We arrived at a little hole-in-the-wall place - my favorite kind! - called Barth's, recommended by our photographer. We arrived around 8 p.m., a little past the dinner rush. "Just go ahead and sit anywhere," a hostess informed us, after we'd been standing timidly in the doorway for at least five minutes. "Smoking's up here, non-smoking's in the back."

Well, of course. We passed the salad bar, an array of iceberg lettuce and pickled beets, wilting sadly in the cigarette smoke, on our way through to the non-smoking room. There were no open tables there. Or rather, there were several tables - but most of them were in a portion of the room where the lights were off altogether. Three of them stood in the lighted room, all uncleaned. We stood and looked uncertainly around us for a few moments. Finally we moved the dirty plates and the cash tip from one table onto another dirty table and sat down. A waitress appeared and wiped our table down. "What would you folks like to drink?" she asked.

We ordered soda, but the gloom that descended after she left was impenetrable. My boss, the photographer, and I were on this trip. We all get along very well, but it had been an awfully long two days, and we were tired. The silence stretched on interminably. The waitress did not return.

"So," says the photographer, Kevin, after a while, "do y'all just want to go to Subway or something?"

We left - I stopped on the way to apologize to the harried young waitress, who was polite, but seemed frankly relieved - and filled up the gas tank, then pulled into a Dairy Queen a quarter of a mile down the street. Here we ordered burgers at the counter, but fast food was apparently not a concept with which Kenedy was prepared to grapple last night. We sat at a Formica table and made awkward, weary chit-chat with one another. After twenty minutes, I remarked, "You know, I think maybe they're inventing cattle."

Eventually the food came. We ate in silence. Kevin wanted a milkshake, and I'm not impartial to Blizzards myself. He approached the counter again. Sorry! The Dairy Queen was fresh out of ice cream. Kevin looked around the room. Several people were eating sundaes.

My boss, undaunted by the "Restrooms closed for cleaning" sign posted on the door, took a chance on the bathroom, and was successful, too. Kevin found the men's room likewise to be perfectly in order. I started wondering if we were all characters in an episode of "The Twilight Zone."

The sensation didn't dissipate after we left. Kevin drove, wending through the darkening countryside as lightning flickered restlessly in the rainless clouds. He and I talked about books and movies, or were silent. Martha dozed in the backseat. We passed three or four other small quiet towns with Dairy Queens, lit up only just enough to showcase the silhouettes of chairs perched upside-down atop Formica tables. There was no ice cream to be found anywhere in Texas last night. I gazed out the passenger window as random discharges of electricity illuminated the sky.

Today we had a division-wide birthday celebration - tres leches cake with whipped-cream icing, plus cookies, yogurt, chocolate cupcakes, and fresh fruit. Life is normal. Sweets and dairy products are readily available. And it's an honest living, too.

The Journey of a Thousand Miles

Magda and Dumas are safely home in Barrow now. They traveled back with heavy hearts: the urn in which their father’s ancient ashes reposed overturned in the back of Dumas’ car when they hit a pothole in Gonzales, an ignominious scattering for the dignified and stern old Russian. Shaken, his children swept what they could out onto the beach without further ceremony. Their trip back to Alaska was spent mostly in silence, pondering the foolishness of their efforts, and wondering why they had once more made this epic journey, for so little reward to anyone?

But their depression was not destined to last, for on their return, they were overjoyed to find their brother Edwin safe at home; he had survived his sojourn in the belly of the whale, and in due course he emerged from it in the natural way, completely unscathed – only wanting a long shower, and expressing a marked disinclination for sushi.

Dumas is now a changed man: abandoning his dream of bringing a Super Wal-Mart to his hometown, he is now cultivating grapes in a fledgling vineyard where the retail giant was once to set its mighty foot, and looks forward to sampling the as-yet-unnamed fruit of his Bacchanalian efforts.

Magda, meanwhile, is meditating on the myriad blessings of her own personal advantages; loving and supportive family members; kind, loyal friends; a fun, steady job where her useful work is appreciated and rewarded; and the excellent health to continue enjoying all this wonderful bounty for a long time to come. What a lucky creature, what a child of good fortune she is. What could she possibly have to complain about?

Okay, so the sunburn hurts really really bad. But hurts will get better.

Say WHAT?!?!?

I'm still bummed about not getting to go to Corpus, but my BFF Robbie wants to go on a road trip this weekend. Wouldn't that be fun?!? Somewhere we haven't been before. Somewhere out West, he says. I have a couple of coworkers in West Texas, people I just met in person at the conference in Beaumont, so I send a quick inquiry and get some information.

Maybe an hour later, another coworker from near the Oklahoma border calls me up to get clarification on a task I'd assigned him. I dig through my files for the information, making small talk to kill time. "So I hear you're planning a road trip out West!" he says.

And they say my agency has internal communication problems.

And speaking of not speaking, I got out of an agonizing, 3.5-hour staff meeting this afternoon only to discover a chummy email from a former acquaintance of mine, who owns a small plane and makes his living contracting out to local farmers to spray pesticide over their fields. "How are you doing?" he wrote. "I thought you would be driving to Corpus Christi last week."

Oh, he's a smart guy. Well, ish. He'll never set the world on fire (unless he has a strategically-placed lighter), but sending this message via email shows he has some sense of self-preservation, at least when it comes to his eardrums. It's a good thing computer monitors aren't made of glass anymore.

Finally, a funny story (I thought) from another coworker out West: west, in fact, of El Paso, as far west as you can go and still be in the grand old state of Texas. My coworker was attempting to hire someone, and candidates were sent over from a local employment firm.

The first candidate he interviewed, he said, was absolutely perfect. He didn't need to see anyone else. He transcribed the interview as required, filled out the paperwork, prepared to move ahead with the hiring process - no small task, you know, when you're in state government - and called the firm. "You don't need to send anyone else," he told the representative, "this one is perfect! Please go ahead and extend her the offer."

"Oh, I'm sorry!" said the rep. "I should have told you. She isn't actually available to work at this time. We just sent her out so she could get some practice interviewing."

Exhibiting superhuman patience, my coworker did not bitch-slap the rep into next week, and instead recovered himself and moved forward with the interviews. The next candidate was quite promising; she arrived early; appeared very professional, knowledgeable, and friendly; and he chatted with her while getting everything printed out and ready for the interview. With everything lined up, he asked her the first interview question, switching to English.

She appeared confused. "Oh - I don't speak English," she said (in Spanish.)

"Oh," he said, taken aback. "I'm sorry. You have to be able to speak English." So the disappointed applicant left, and once more he called the employment firm rep, of whom I have to think he was not overly fond by now. "Why did you send me someone who can't speak any English?" he asked.

"We already discussed this," she told him patiently. "You said it wasn't a problem."

"WHAT?!" he said, "of course it's a problem, this is an information position serving the traveling public, why on earth would I say they wouldn't need to be able to speak English?!"

"Well, I did ask you if this position required the candidate to be bilingual," the rep said reasonably. "You told me it didn't."

Maybe Robbie and I will get out there this weekend.

Sleepless in Austin

If it's not one thing, it's another: this time, not only did Papa Silhavy's ashes get left on the baggage carousel in Seattle, but so did poor Magda. Oh! the indignity!

Those things pinch, too.

Meanwhile, here in Austin, I had a pretty quiet couple of days off, which I dedicated largely to manicure upkeep. This gets old after a while.

Do you know what a Beverly Hills manicure is? It used to be called an American manicure - as opposed to French, you know - back when I used to do the fake nail thing, which nobody does anymore, except in Beaumont. It's clear pink polish over the nail beds and sheer off-white on the tips, which gives the overall effect that you have really nice nails that aren't all split and peely and uneven-looking; and like a lot of the dumb stuff we dames do in the name of beauty, takes quite a lot of effort to make it look like you aren't even trying.

On those stupid MySpace survey things when one of the questions is "What's the first thing you notice about the opposite sex?" no man has ever, ever, ever answered "Her fingernails." Not the gay ones either. Nobody.

The other thing you can do if you take time off during the week is go to breakfast at Magnolia. Even on a Thursday morning there's a fifteen-minute wait. Forget about the weekend. It's a pity, because I remember a time when you could go there and actually hope to eat something yummy - gingerbread pancakes, perhaps, though my personal favorite is the Popeye omelet - within a reasonable amount of time. Now the waiting area is just as packed as Rain on a Saturday night. They should have bouncers who turn you away if you don't smell like locally-produced, organic personal hygiene products.

You can also go to happy hour and show up early enough that you might get a table and/or a parking space.

When I lived in Corpus, the thing I really liked about it was that it wasn't crowded. There wasn't a lot of traffic, and even Wal-Mart shopping was not a completely traumatic experience. You could pop by the HEB after work to pick up a few items and have no trouble whatsoever acquiring a shopping cart (as long as you weren't looking for one of those kiddie-car shaped ones, because they don't have those there at all) and be in and out in fifteen minutes. If you went out dancing, there was room to get away from the person grinding on you if you wanted to (which you did; there are no cute guys in Corpus). People who live there tend to move away after a while, so there's plenty of elbow room.

Austin is wonderful and people keep moving here in droves and now it's just too crowded to go anywhere, but that's okay because you couldn't afford it anyway.

I hear Barrow is lovely this time of year.

Once More Into the Beach, Dear Friends

This post guest-written by Magda Silhavy

The time has come, once again, to leave my remote but dearly loved home in Barrow, and make my way once more to the strange hot lands of the south: to Corpus Christi, whose tepid waters bear so little resemblance to the gray and icy ones I have known all my life. This time, however, I do not journey with my dear brothers and business partners, Edwin and Dumas. This is the busy season for whale marketing, and no time for all three of us to be away. I alone will go, then - yet not alone: two intrepid friends bear me company.

There is Ik-Ik, our family's attorney, who goes to ensure that the terms of my late father's will are carried out according to the spirit, if not the letter. After our last disastrous attempt to scatter his ashes in Mexico, when Dumas absent-mindedly neglected to pick up the urn from the baggage carousel in the Seattle airport, some others of us in the family felt it was time to get the law involved. Ik-Ik - the only son of our long-time family friend and live-in helper of indeterminate gender, Nyuk-Nyuk* - has interpreted my father's will to mean that it's good enough to scatter his ashes in the Gulf of Mexico. We need not actually cross into that unfamiliar land. And I am sure they have mariachi music in Corpus, so Dad should be happy. I look forward to at long last discharging my filial duty - as you may recall, Papa Silhavy died at the age of 97 while crossing the Bering Strait from his native Russia, when Edwin, Dumas and I were in our infancy. So this is long overdue.

Ik-Ik is a friend to the family and I have known him all my life, but another man travels with us who may cause some disquiet in my bosom. His name is Zachary. Zachary is a good man, but a stranger, an adventurer, a loner. He runs his own business from just outside town; he owns a small plane, and earns his living contracting out to local farmers, spraying pesticide on their fields. No one knows his last name: they merely call him Zachary, the crop-duster.

Don't get me wrong! If you are traveling to lands unknown, Zachary is the man to bring, and he comes at Ik-Ik's insistence. But you see, Zachary was once my lover. Our relationship was forever sundered when he was inducted into the elite and mysterious Barrow Fight Club (as a rule, we don't talk about it), and he left me alone to face the sobering realization that the man I once cared for would rather get punched in the face than enjoy my favors.

There's really just no good way to take that one.

Nonetheless, there is a task to be done, and do it I will: I am strong, and determined, and one day I shall be mayor of our village; and you don't get to be mayor by crumbling at every minor little personal setback. No, I shall do my duty, and leave our family business, www.whalebarrow.net, in the capable hands of Edwin and Dumas; Ik-Ik will turn his practice over to a junior partner for a few days; and, God willing, Zachary won't even think about crop-dusting until his return home.

We arrive in Corpus on Thursday: wish us Godspeed, my friends!

-----------
*Ik-Ik doesn't know either. In his culture, it's considered extremely rude to inquire of your parent whether he (or she) is your mother (or father).

Son of Nyuk-Nyuk

by Dumas and Magda Silhavy

You may remember that last May, my brothers Edwin, Dumas, and myself made the long journey from our adopted hometown of Barrow, Alaska, to Corpus Christi, Texas. We were on our way to Mexico to scatter the ashes of our beloved father, who was killed by a moose at the tender age of 97, while our family was crossing the Bering Strait from his native Russia.

It was a lot easier back when there was a land bridge.

Our mother, who came to our father as a mail-order bride from Las Vegas, halfheartedly raised us alone before abandoning us to our own devices; she shacked up with some loser in Nome, and the three of us, practically orphans, struggled to make a life for ourselves. And of course we ultimately did, becoming successful whale marketers. And having established ourselves as prominent citizens of Barrow – I myself plan to become mayor one day – we decided the time had come to lay our father to his final rest in Mexico, where he can forever after enjoy the strains of mariachi music. Ah, how Father loved mariachi music!

Unfortunately, Dumas left Dad’s ashes on the baggage carousel in Seattle.

We’re planning another trip, and this time, we plan to bring help in the form of a brilliant young attorney named Ik-Ik, though you may know him as Tony, or perhaps even Cheryl’s Bitch. Ik-Ik is the only son of our maid (or butler), Nyuk-Nyuk, of whose gender we have never been certain. But surely, surely, his (or her) very own son can tell us. We’ve always wondered!

Ik-Ik claims attorney-client privilege, and isn’t talking.

Ik-Ik is the executor of our father’s estate, so it falls to his lot to oversee the arrangements for disposition of our father’s remains which were spelled out in his will. We’ll enjoy the chance to make the trip with him, and I personally feel that, after a couple of mojitos, and maybe a brownie or two, Ik-Ik will spill the beans on his mother’s (or father’s) gender.

Dumas disagrees.

No one in Barrow knows, Dumas points out, whether it was Nyuk-Nyuk or his (or her) spouse, Chris, who was pregnant. Both of them had been seriously overweight, and had cut out whale blubber in an effort to trim down; both of them had then lost about 100 pounds each, and it was during this time that Ik-Ik was born. Nor was Ik-Ik delivered in a hospital, or even under the careful eye of a midwife: eschewing even such assistance as is embraced by many Alaskan natives, Chris and Nyuk-Nyuk delivered their son alone, in the isolation of their own igloo.

Ik-Ik himself, remarks Dumas, addresses both his parents as “Baba,” so even he may not know which is which. And if he were uncertain, he could hardly have asked. To inquire of one’s parents what their gender may be is the lowest form of rudeness in Alaskan culture. It's unthinkable. It's even worse than wearing white mukluks after Labor Day.

Whatever mysteries Nyuk-Nyuk’s indomitable parka may conceal, we expect to have another enlightening and meaningful trip to Corpus this year. Especially if Dumas remembers to pick up Dad’s ashes.

Reminders

I had the nicest email today from someone I used to work with in Corpus. She isn't someone I knew all that well, but I liked her; she was clearly overqualified for her job, but still friendly and easygoing, pleasant to deal with, and always on the ball with her work.

So naturally they fired her.

We haven't been in touch, so she sent me a recap of the past two years. She had a baby shortly before I left and has been doing the at-home momtrepreneurial thing - Avon, in her case, though she said she really doesn't feel she's much of a saleswoman. And she asked how I was, if I was happier than I had been in Corpus, and if my new job was going well.

What a nice email to answer while sitting on the front porch of my comfortable (if not very clean) house, smack-dab in the center of my favorite city in the world. "I have lots of good friends at work here," I told her, "only they keep quitting." Which is such a shame, you know. Some people have just never acquired any real sense of how nice it is not to be employed by sociopaths.

The sun is low, almost setting: so early! but it's too beautiful out not to feel lucky to be here: warts, panicmongers/obfusc8rs, silly internet use policies, weekly status reports, and all.

Let's just hope I can refrain from buying any Avon.

Ready for the Weekend

Anna was taken aback by the bright green bandages on my arms when I got home. "Why do you have those?" she asked.

"Because I gave blood at work today," I said.

She was perplexed. "Somebody at work ran out of blood?"

Actually, it wouldn't surprise me.

Today feels like a Friday: the last day of school, and there's jubilation in the air. I just dropped Eric off at his grandma's house for the long weekend.

She gardens, my ex-mother-in-law, which is odd. Inside the house it's always dark and gloomy. It's furnished and decorated with heavy, almost Gothic antiques. The TV, the only light source in the living room, is never off. There are big windows, but they never seem to admit any light. My ex-father-in-law floats around the place, vaguely, like an alcohol-fueled ghost. It's an incredibly depressing place; but outside is a profusion of bloom and life that contrasts starkly with the airless indoors.

Whereas I tend to be the other way around: my home tends to be, if not in the strictest sense clean, at least cozy and cheerful inside; but my outdoor design and maintenance abilities make the baby Jesus cry.

It should be a fun weekend. I'm going to Corpus with friends, liquor, and the flying spaghetti car. There will be dancing!

With luck, there won't be any further bloodshed.