Groan. Saturday.
Jul. 21st, 2003 07:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsOnly half my nightmares came true last night. At first, the air conditioner's deep, throbbing hum kept me awake, but that was quickly replaced by the thumping, bumping sounds of over-powered speakers blaring rap music. That lasted until about midnight, maybe a little later. Then a car alarm went off for five minutes, stopped for five, resumed again for about two. Infuriating.
I read in the newspaper this very day that we're in an area where prostitution and drug dealing are very common at local motels. Omaha's relatives confirm that the area we're in has seriously run down in the past couple of years. Great.
I awake at seven, an hour early, in amazing amounts of pain from the terrible quality of the mattress. My pillow is a brick wrapped with a pillow case. Omaha's is worse: it's a pillow case stuffed with fiber fill, the covering on the pillow nearly disintegrate from repeated washing. We gave the good one to Kouryou-chan.
At least the car is intact in the morning.
We see Omaha's mother for breakfast. An IHOP, and actually a rather good one. Clean and competent, although the neighborhood is still kinda scary. As we're checking out of the motel, a screaming match breaks out between a man and a woman. We duck out and make a break for Omaha's grandfather's house.
When we get there, we provide her grandfather and her step-grandmother with the excuse they'd been looking for to avoid going to a funeral. Instead, they proceed to talk our ears off with adventures they have had triapsing around the world. It's actually quite fun to listen too, all the same. It's kinda shocking to look at the medical equipment scattered about the home and realizing that this guy is alive only because the technology exists to keep him that way. Oddly, he's not that interested in Kouryou-chan; he says at one point that he's got "so many grand and great-grandkids" he can't keep track anymore. The step-grandmother is much more into the next generations and gladly accepts the CD-ROM. He says he's not interested in learning any new technologies "or anything new. What could I do with it now?"
I sit outside with Kouryou-chan, who chooses to run around in the back yard. I read Lovecraft's The Shadow Out Of Time.
Omaha's step-grandmother tries to feed us, southern style, with eggs heavy on cream, grits, and sausage, but we've already foundered at the IHOP and that's enough for us. We take only sandwiches as we head to our next stop: Omaha's grandmother.
This is an adventure: she lives in the Florida desert. It's a desolate little section of Floride between Gainesville and Jacksonville that's nothing but scrub, brush, and the hardiest trees in North America. There is no topsoil; it's white sand. The only nitrogen input into the ecosystem is guano. Her grandmother lives in the middle of nowhere, around a lake that's barely there. We can't find the road to her home. Amazingly, I cannot convince Omaha to stop and ask for directions, so I have to do it. The fellow I ask says, "Well, you can get there from this side, but not in that car. You'd want at least a four-wheel drive." So we drive around to the other side of the lake and find our way in with no problem.
Her grandmother is 82 and lives by herself in the middle of this emptiness, although she does have two neighbors within line of sight. She's a neat woman. She's also there with Omaha's aunt, who I think is a little crazy. She has a white trailer home nearby, and has covered the entire thing with Bible verses in letters a foot high. "She only has one neighbor," says Omaha's grandmother. "Nobody else ever sees it. Now, I give Him my ten minutes first thing in the morning and get on with my day. I'm not much of a Bible reader: too many things in there that are just too unbelievable, you understand. But she, she wakes up at three o'clock in the morning to talk to Him. I just say my prayers and take it on faith that it all will work out, you understand."
Omaha's Aunt takes us out to dinner, at a place called the Kountry Inn. It's what you expect in this part of the world. The food is heavy and greasy and comforting, and I eat only a littlee bit of it. She treats her husband with surprising disdain, making me wonder what keeps them together.
When we get back, Omaha's grandmother gives us a spare bedroom with a twin for three people. I read to Kouryou-chan and put her to bed after Omaha bathes her. We cannabalize a small couch to make a bed for her next to the twin Omaha's grandmother provided for three people. She goes to sleep quickly. I head to bed a little bit later, after I've finished reading Iain M. Banks's Against a Dark Background.
Nobody sleeps comfortably. Kouryou-chan wakes in the middle of the night, having fallen out of her makeshift bed. We remake the bed and she sleeps the rest of the way, but fitfully. Poor little girl.
I read in the newspaper this very day that we're in an area where prostitution and drug dealing are very common at local motels. Omaha's relatives confirm that the area we're in has seriously run down in the past couple of years. Great.
I awake at seven, an hour early, in amazing amounts of pain from the terrible quality of the mattress. My pillow is a brick wrapped with a pillow case. Omaha's is worse: it's a pillow case stuffed with fiber fill, the covering on the pillow nearly disintegrate from repeated washing. We gave the good one to Kouryou-chan.
At least the car is intact in the morning.
We see Omaha's mother for breakfast. An IHOP, and actually a rather good one. Clean and competent, although the neighborhood is still kinda scary. As we're checking out of the motel, a screaming match breaks out between a man and a woman. We duck out and make a break for Omaha's grandfather's house.
When we get there, we provide her grandfather and her step-grandmother with the excuse they'd been looking for to avoid going to a funeral. Instead, they proceed to talk our ears off with adventures they have had triapsing around the world. It's actually quite fun to listen too, all the same. It's kinda shocking to look at the medical equipment scattered about the home and realizing that this guy is alive only because the technology exists to keep him that way. Oddly, he's not that interested in Kouryou-chan; he says at one point that he's got "so many grand and great-grandkids" he can't keep track anymore. The step-grandmother is much more into the next generations and gladly accepts the CD-ROM. He says he's not interested in learning any new technologies "or anything new. What could I do with it now?"
I sit outside with Kouryou-chan, who chooses to run around in the back yard. I read Lovecraft's The Shadow Out Of Time.
Omaha's step-grandmother tries to feed us, southern style, with eggs heavy on cream, grits, and sausage, but we've already foundered at the IHOP and that's enough for us. We take only sandwiches as we head to our next stop: Omaha's grandmother.
This is an adventure: she lives in the Florida desert. It's a desolate little section of Floride between Gainesville and Jacksonville that's nothing but scrub, brush, and the hardiest trees in North America. There is no topsoil; it's white sand. The only nitrogen input into the ecosystem is guano. Her grandmother lives in the middle of nowhere, around a lake that's barely there. We can't find the road to her home. Amazingly, I cannot convince Omaha to stop and ask for directions, so I have to do it. The fellow I ask says, "Well, you can get there from this side, but not in that car. You'd want at least a four-wheel drive." So we drive around to the other side of the lake and find our way in with no problem.
Her grandmother is 82 and lives by herself in the middle of this emptiness, although she does have two neighbors within line of sight. She's a neat woman. She's also there with Omaha's aunt, who I think is a little crazy. She has a white trailer home nearby, and has covered the entire thing with Bible verses in letters a foot high. "She only has one neighbor," says Omaha's grandmother. "Nobody else ever sees it. Now, I give Him my ten minutes first thing in the morning and get on with my day. I'm not much of a Bible reader: too many things in there that are just too unbelievable, you understand. But she, she wakes up at three o'clock in the morning to talk to Him. I just say my prayers and take it on faith that it all will work out, you understand."
Omaha's Aunt takes us out to dinner, at a place called the Kountry Inn. It's what you expect in this part of the world. The food is heavy and greasy and comforting, and I eat only a littlee bit of it. She treats her husband with surprising disdain, making me wonder what keeps them together.
When we get back, Omaha's grandmother gives us a spare bedroom with a twin for three people. I read to Kouryou-chan and put her to bed after Omaha bathes her. We cannabalize a small couch to make a bed for her next to the twin Omaha's grandmother provided for three people. She goes to sleep quickly. I head to bed a little bit later, after I've finished reading Iain M. Banks's Against a Dark Background.
Nobody sleeps comfortably. Kouryou-chan wakes in the middle of the night, having fallen out of her makeshift bed. We remake the bed and she sleeps the rest of the way, but fitfully. Poor little girl.
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no subject
Date: 2003-07-21 08:23 am (UTC)I hope I never get to the point where I don't want to learn new things... *sigh*
Safe journey home, eh?
Kinda reminds me of last year's thanksgiving oddesey....