Cleaning Day; Dinner with Meg

Prepare for a pretty boring blog post. Alright, here's the game plan, we cleaned, and got ready for the arrival at our motorhome of one of Mom's childhood friends, Meg, whom she spent some time with in coming back to Glendora in her teenage years, after she had spent time in Georgia. After that we went out to dinner with Meg. It wasn't the most exciting thing, like the TMZ tour, but you know what we all need some down days, especially on an R.V. trip. (back here in Roswell almost every day is a down day). I was excited to meet Meg, whom I though was Mom's cousin at the time but was later told that they were friends and the cousin named Meg lived somewhere else. So confusing!!!

The morning was a little CNN, and sadly I stretched and then was told to let the air out and squish it in so Meg could sleep. I prolonged it by reading a little of my Ireland book, a book I was determined to finish by St. Patrick's Day, which was the following day. It was the 16th, and there's no special occasion for that day. You could call it an un-birthday, also. (Every person has 364 un-birthdays, and why don't we celebrate them too!) On this day Mom took out the dogs much against my will as I wanted to do it for her, and Rebecca made a fuss about having to push in her futon as her barbies might be hurt in the process. Ah, her large barbie plaza or complex, full of shoeboxes and numerous cabinets... she has so much more room than me and it is simply not fair sometimes... as we took papers places and threw trash away, dusted on our dirty tile floor and Mom made me put the clothes into the white bag in the back, Rebecca and I bickered and argued, about each other's space, respect, food, and television, or just argued about some strange subject. Oh, we angered each other a lot and were probably worse than Cain and Abel. But, here in Roswell, we barely ever fight, as there is a lot of room and several bedrooms between us to share. It is certainly enough. But, on the R.V., there was 45 ft and maybe a small R.V. park. But, as she was my only child companionship sometimes besides the kids at the RV parks, we had to play outside and also ride bikes around. However, we didn't do much at Anaheim that day besides cleaning.

Do I have to go into detail about the process of moving computers, putting them into cases, taking stuff off counters and stuffing everything in the back so that it looks like the R.V. has a lot of room, setting up chairs and all that cleaning and rearranging jazz? Because I'd rather not. In a few days we'll be doing some very exciting things.

The evening rolled around and it was tense as we waited for Meg to appear. Finally, in a black sedan parked across the street, we saw through the large wide R.V. front window the girl we had all been waiting for. She had blondish curly hair, more ginger, and also was large and not too tall. Dressed in a dress ish with a little sweater, she emerged as we all came out to meet her. Nothing she said or did was done in great exclamation, which I thought was odd. It was clear she was very shrewd as she hugged us and made witty comments the entire night. I like people who can say a funny line, you know. They talked for a long time outside by the car, and as Dad came we prepared to depart to go to a restaurant. We would probably end up going back to Downtown Disney, that shop/eat area from a few blogs back. Meg drove, and Mom sat in the back with us, as Rebecca bothered me in the middle. Dad was in the passenger seat. We then took off.

We drove all the way to Downtown Disney, in a parking lot and several areas belonging to hotels, trying to find our way in the dark night. The car zoomed rather fast, exhaust piling invisibly in the air, then moving on in the process of diffusion. She went up to a gate guard as we closed in to Downtown Disney, demanding a valet parking session. She didn't sound flustered, but tried to get her message across in slow words, and saying things like, "Ok, Joe, will you do me a favor? We want valet....what? I'm sorry? Ok....valet....valet?" He was on the phone with someone and she had to repeat herself. He then told her to go across the street and into another lane. He thanked her.... I mean she thanked him.... sorry, and then after that we went across the street to where those buildings were and that little ticket booth and those boats in the water and a man was waiting for us as we departed and he took our little cruiser and parked it. We then sauntered in the moonlight over to the paved area in Downtown Disney, past the sign, looking at the ESPN Zone. Did we want to go there for our long awaited dinner?

I think Mom and Dad wanted of something that was different, not the same old jazz, besides, it was crowded tremendously and all the T.V.'s and arcade games were bursting with activity. To the left was a restaurant with Spanish style architecture and wonderful brickwork, further on as we went into the paved walking area with numerous booths and shops, past the Rainforest Cafe. This establishment was named "Joe's Cantina" and was a Mexican restaurant. We had wanted to go here after we had done a full day of DisneyLand, but being too entirely tired, we carried on and went back to the RV, not even eating dinner. So we wanted to try it out again.

Unluckily however there proved to be quite a long line for this restaurant also, people sitting on ledges and in the long line to the podium where they put down their spot. We went all the way up there in the crisp and cold March air, my hands like the bloody hands of a pirate, red as the dirty scoundrels themselves. Well, Meg told us some funny stories, tending to be rather serious at points but still smiling and being nice. Mom and her talked of their old past and all the funny things that happened, also referring to a few old faces and what they were doing presently.

"How about your brother?" Mom asked.

"Same old same old...he's been really successful." She told us that she had gone to the first inauguration of President Obama and really wished he would be elected once more. In the wake of the present election we now know that her wish has been achieved. Sigh.

But it was interesting to learn she had been there, and it sure must of been a great honor to be part of his campaign and see this great event. She's a really big supporter and it probably was momentous to be in the historic moment of America's first black president. Wow. But anyway, we finally got in after her showing us pictures of her dog and the girls talking in one group and Dad and I in another. Finally we drifted in to the awesome restaurant, balconies around us, Spanish heritage surrounding us with the ivy going all around and the sandstone walls. On the ceiling.... well, scratch that.... there was no ceiling. It was crazy! Open air.... I mean seriously. We looked up at the smeared totally black sky, no stars in sight because we were in the city. Not like in North Dakota. You see stars as much as you can't see people. Haha.

That made it cool and breezy in there, which I enjoyed. Dad and I went to the restroom to the direct right of the entrance as they sat at a six seater table towards the bar.

 We got some of those hard chips in the basket in the middle of our table, and the Meg with purse settled as the waiter came to get our drinks. The witty Meg answered in such a fashion that was to inspire me to be funny towards the breed of hospitality servants. I now will be familiar and kind to any waitress or waiter I see. And I get that uneasy awkwardness filtering away and the funny familiar sense appearing from the Good Old Meg.

As Dad nibbled on cheesy nachos and Rebecca on soft tortillas later in the night after ordering drinks, (Rebecca and I had water, Mom had a margarita, as did Meg. Dad was a miller light man) Meg told us that as a school administrator she was going to be selecting a new curriculum called Common Core, that we had never heard of before. But Meg told us that a whole 38 states were already developing this new curriculum. Georgia was soon to be one of them. The deal about this common core thing was that they would have the same standards, I suppose, and so with this they would really be able to see what state had the highest literacy rate, or the smartest school. So this way it wasn’t Kansas learning one thing and Ohio another, you know. Rather interesting, I suppose, but very soon I got bored with this grownup talk and tried to change the subject to movies, Cali, steering away from the subject of politics and immigration and other serious conflicts.

I looked around, at moving Latino waiters as they placed plates upon the tables of the people they served, or at the white twinkles in the sky, barely seen by the overwhelming amount of fog in the Los Angeles sky. I people watched, seeing the reactions and different things like that of numerous people, and how they acted and reacted. But then I got bored and focused my ears once more upon the conversation.

 We talked of Eric, the piano man we had met in DisneyLand who was related to Meg, and after eating our very nice enchilada verdes and talked some more in the dim environment of the shifting people, the cool breeze and all the drinks and foods, we gave the bill and left.

Back in her car we quickly retreated all the way back to the RV. We sat on the couches in some silence…as our eyelids drooped in the hazy hot air, the dirt on the tile floor rubbing against my socks as my eyelids dropped and dropped, my head lowering lazily, more politic discussions moving around with immigration, democr… republi…. YAWN! My eyes were out first as the voices blurred and blurred, becoming rather dismal, and then, vanished. I was still conscious, still  thinking, but then stopped thinking, feeling, smelling, and started sleeping.

So that was the end of that day. I never got to say goodbye to Meg. Maybe it’s better like that. For, we‘ll probably see each other again someday… I don’t know. Well, Meg was very nice, smart, witty, and a good talker. I can see why Mom was her friend back in her childhood. They barely keep in touch, however, and their ideals and views aren’t the same, but hey, who cares! Meg was a very nice person and maybe in California when I become a movie person I’ll see ‘er again.

Speaking of movie people… the next blog post will be full of them. Actors, directors, show moms… all closer than ever before. And we’ll go to the house of one…read the next blog post to find out how, who, where, and why!

Do you want some nut with that Meg?,

Andrew.