Category Archives: Humor

Pay no attention to the typo. Voluntees are wanted.

Jeff and I were out on the bike the other day when we stopped in to see some friends who put on a free Haunted House last year. It was so successful that they’re doing it again this year, so if you find yourself in Pasco County, Florida on October 31, stop on in with a can of food or two (entrance is free, but they are asking for donations for the United Methodist Church’s food pantry).

Last year, Jeff was one of the haunters of the house. This year, we won’t be in town (we’ll be at Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s Rally to Restore Sanity in Washington DC, blogging about the event) so he’s going to have to wear his ghost drag at the nation’s capitol if he’s going to dress up on Halloween, one of his favorite holidays. Here’s hoping, with his bizarre luck, that he doesn’t get tackled by the Secret Service and forced to live in a tent for an extra week, freezing his cajones off, waiting for his court date.

Ron, Ann and Paula take a break.

Anyway, Roman and Paula Kowal came up with the great idea last year to put on a free haunted house on their vast property. There are plenty of twisting and turning paths, with an empty house that they aren’t living in (they live in a house adjacent to the haunted house land) and an incredible supply of haunted house stuff. I have no idea where they got it all from, but when we stopped by the other day, I was blown away by how ready they are for this year, with the help of friends like Ron and Ann, and Don and Christine and others I haven’t met yet.

Paula told me that she was amazed by how many people are calling to find out if they are doing it again this year and to volunteer because they want to be a part of it. In fact, one father is making his adolescent son volunteer to work off a punishment, but I rather think that the boy is not feeling a lot of pain doing something so fun, except for working in the blistering Florida heat preparing the place for their one-night-only show.

Did I mention the wildlife on Roman and Paula’s land? They have an emu farm, with plenty of peacocks roaming the property. A few years ago, Jeff was asked by a mutual friend, Bob, to help him take care of the emus while Roman and Paula were out of town. Bob had found one of the emus dead, and needed Jeff’s help to remove the body from their pen, but the living emus were having none of these two strange humans touching their dead pal. They rushed and attacked Bob and Jeff, who both ran like little girls out of the pen.

Bob then told Jeff that if he holds a shovel up over his head, the emus will think that he’s taller than them, and leave him alone. I don’t know if Jeff is less than intelligent, or if he’s just willing to try anything (I prefer to believe the latter), but in he went … for about two seconds, because Bob was wrong. Roman and Paula found an ex-emu in the pen when they returned from their trip.

Not to worry, though. The emus will be put up for the night, so attendees can leave their shovels at home. The theme of this year’s haunted house is Sleepy Hollow, because Roman and Paula somehow acquired a horse this past year, and it would be a shame to waste a horse, wouldn’t it? Now all they need is a headless horseman!  Headless voluntees, anyone?

P.S. The haunted house is at 17128 East Road, Hudson, FL 34667, a few miles south of County Line Road, just north of Hudson Ave. You can’t miss it. Watch for the sign.

I thought the whole "here's you a dog" thing had run its course, but I keep finding fun pics of dogs, like this one getting the Vulcan Mind Meld from Jeff. So, here's you a dog who's been hyp-no-tized.

Okay, I’m home. Now what? Jeff and I managed to break away from the rut we were in, and now that we’re back it’s difficult to not fall right back in, because that ditch was pretty deep. Jeff already has both legs hanging over the edge and isn’t trying very hard to keep from sliding in all the way (he’s already back to sleeping late and killing Nazis on his computer). I, on the other hand, am fighting like mad to keep my footing. Unfortunately, he has a death grip on my ankle.

Please ignore the unmatching linens. We've been out of town for a month, okay? That's a t-shirt wrapped around his head. He can't sleep when it's light out. Maybe he should just GET OUT OF BED!!!

See, Jeff is a product of “today’s economy.” God, I hate that expression. So many people use it as a crutch or excuse to explain their shitty lives, or their desire to stay in victim-mode, but in some cases (like Jeff’s) it’s just a fact, with no emotion. It is what it is and that’s all that it is. There is no work in Florida in Jeff’s field, at least not nearby (we live in the major boondocks). I think the difference is that some use it as a rationalization for their victimhood and refuse to change anything, clinging tightly to the past and insisting that nothing change, and some see it as a sign that it’s time to do things differently. We’re seeing it as a nudge to change our lives.

That was one reason for our recent trip. We were looking around the country to see if either of us could find a job somewhere else. Sure, we were hoping it wouldn’t be up north, because that’s where the snow is, but if that’s where work is, we’d tough it out and go back to scraping ice off of our car windows again.

Well, right before we left, I was asked to co-author a book by someone who lives here in Florida. So unless Jeff found something amazing, we would stay here so I could work on that. Meantime, he still needs to find a job here.

But never mind all that. What I’m having a hard time with, at this moment, now that we’ve spent the last month or so on the road, is creating a new routine. You’d think, after being away for so long, that I wouldn’t even think about playing Petville in the morning. After all, I’ve got mountains of laundry to do! It’s time to shake things up and do them differently!

In fact, I saw all of those initial car problems on our trip as energetic bands of resistance, like evil psychic clutches, that we had to break through in order to get away from bad habits. And the car problems we had in the days before we finally came back to Florida, I saw as resistance to returning home, because we both knew it would be hard to create a whole new life out of what we have to work with. Neither of us wanted to go backward. But what do you replace old habits with?

My daughter Stacy got me hooked on Petville a few months ago, saying it’s a cute game and that it would be a good way for me to connect with and play with my grandsons. Well, as soon as she realized how addictive and insidious it is, she and her whole family stopped playing. But I was already hooked. Plus, the game is designed to guilt trip you in to playing. If you don’t, your pet will get progressively filthier and hungrier, eventually covered with flies and holding its abdomen with hunger pains. Eventually, it runs away to find food and you have to pay a huge fine to get it back from the pound.

In fact, when you first begin playing the game, it starts out with a special delivery package of an animal in a pet taxi. All you can see is two frightened, soulful eyes staring out at you, begging to be released from confinement. However, the only way to release this poor creature is to give Petville your email address. I resisted for days, while the mystery critter pounded and cried to be let out.

 Finally, it got to me and I gave Petville my extra, spam-catcher email address. Next thing I knew, my Petville pet had a pet bird that did absolutely nothing to improve the conditions of anyone’s lives. It just followed my pet around and did stupid things, like fly upward and fall back down, injuring itself in the process, complete with stars circling its noggin. I gave up my privacy to save the life of an annoying cartoon bird. That’s how bad this game is.

Right around the time that Stacy quit playing she sent me a YouTube video of a deleted scene from Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, where the character “Freakshow” sings a song about addictions:

Hey, Randy!
What?
Liquor.
Huh?
The devil is everywhere. Hey, Randy!
What?
Tobacco.
Huh?
The devil is everywhere. 

I’ve created my own verse:

Hey, Randy!
What?
Petville.
Huh?
The devil is everywhere.

But it’s not just Petville, it’s our entire lives. We’ve both fallen into patterns that are hard to break out of, and I’m going to try like mad to keep from slipping back into that rut. It would really bum me out to find ourselves doing exactly the same things we did before we left. It wasn’t like life was so great back then, it was actually pretty boring and I was going insane with ennui.

Here's you an obnoxious pet.

Boy, that pet sure is cute. And dirty. And covered with flies. Oh, look! It’s looking right at me and waving! It needs my help! I can’t just let it starve and sit in its own filth!

The devil is everywhere …

This was my desk for most of the trip.

Along the way, our poor motorcycle got the crap beat out of it. It was in excellent condition when we left, but after a month on that trailer on some pretty bumpy country and/or mountain roads, it’s got bangs and dings in it that will cost a lot of money to fix. Also, at some point in the journey (I think I know where, but can’t say for sure) a few things came up missing from the trailer. Someone who apparently needed the grill, the rug we brought for the tent, and a plastic bin filled with kitchen items helped themselves to these items while we slept.

Because there are so many pictures, I’m not going to write much today. This will be mostly a photo-blog with light commentary. I don’t want to be one of those “look at all the pictures of my grandkids!” people, but we did see some fun and/or interesting things. Take them for what they’re worth.

First, we saw this bumper sticker on Day 1, while our second blown-out tire was being replaced. I thought it was funny, so I snapped a picture. Little did I know how prophetic it would be.

We bought some “Toe Jam” at the same little roadside stand where we bought the Chow Chow (a cabbage/onion relish that is absolutely delish on campfire roasted hot dogs!!!). We haven’t tried the Toe Jam yet, but we plan to as soon as we go grocery shopping to restock the house. We don’t even have any bread yet!

Jeff just loved camping on the river in Asheville, NC, almost as much as he enjoyed camping at Lake Pymatuming in Ohio later in the trip.

This cottage was available for rent at the French Broad River campground, where we stayed in our tent for several days while the skies emptied untold gallons of rain on our parade.

I was able to tell where we were in the country by how my ice tea was served. If it’s sweet by default, you’re south of the Mason Dixon line. In the South, if you ask for unsweetened tea, you’re an inconvenience. North of there, if you ask for sweet tea, the server looks at you funny and says, “There’s sugar on your table.” (I prefer it unsweetened, with an obscene amount of lemon.)

I think the place with the artiest scenery was Asheville. We saw some really cool things elsewhere, but Asheville seemed to cater to artists more than any other place on our route.

I posted a picture of these giant rocking chairs at Breaks Interstate Park, on the Kentucky/Virginia border, on a previous blog, but I had to sit in one to get the Edith Ann effect. And that’s the truth.  :-P~~~~~~

I also knew where we were in the country by how I was able to eat grits the way I like them, without horrifying the restaurant staff and local patrons. Down South, only a Yankee puts butter and sugar on their grits. They put sugar in their tea, and not on their grits. I think they have that whole thing backasswards.

I didn’t mention this at the time, because I didn’t want to attract the attention of any revenuers out there, but Jeff picked up a jug of moonshine along the way. I don’t know if it’s illegal or not, but some things are best to not know. Either way, this stuff will KICK. YOUR. ASS. And it’s gone now, so there is no evidence of any wrongdoing. In fact, these pictures are of Jeff drinking water and acting as if he was having his ass kicked by some powerful hooch. 😉

We didn’t manage to have as many Roman Burgers at Mr. Hero as we wanted. We could (and have) eaten them 24/7 until we burst. These are seriously delicious foodstuffs, and you can only find them in Ohio.

I was baffled by this sign. If someone really doesn’t know what STOP means, is telling them that “STOP MEANS STOP” going to help? It’s like telling a blind person that the sign is red (not that a blind person should be driving anyway). And if they do know what STOP means, will the sarcasm of this sign really reach their conscience and STOP them from misbehaving, or will it awaken their Inner Smartass and cause all sorts of illegal hijinks?

Believe it or not, this crappy little bait shop has the most incredible wine selection you’ll ever see. They boast over 1,000 bottles of wine. I’ve been in there, and have seen brands that I’ve never heard of before, nor will probably ever hear of again.

I’ve noticed that these blog posts have very few pictures of me, so I’m posting the few that I have. That’s because I’m snap happy and Jeff doesn’t think to pick up the camera. Plus, he can’t seem to take a non-blurry picture, unless it’s of an alley or some other tunnel type place. Freud, anyone?

In addition to eating as many Roman Burgers as we can stuff into our faces, no trip to the Cleveland area is complete without a visit to Davis Bakery for a hot corned beef sandwich. Jeff used to drive a delivery truck back in the old days, and the owner of the shop (in the picture with Jeff, at the right) still remembers him every time we visit.

For me, a visit to Cleveland has to include a day in Chagrin Falls. I love this little town so much that when I wrote my first novel it took place here. You’ll find references to many of these town landmarks in Be Careful What You Witch For! Those are the Falls, obviously, and the building that seems to be hanging over the waterfall is the back of the Popcorn Shop, a Chagrin Falls tradition.

Dave’s Cosmic Subs is another must-visit place, even if Dave is a little grouchy. His sandwiches are pretty doggone yummy, though. Across the street, you’ll find an adorable little park, with this adorable statue of a cat gazing up at a nearby tree, which is presumably the home for some doggone yummy birds.

If you take S.O.M. Center Road (S.O.M. stands for Solon Orange Mayfield, the townships it runs through) north to Willoughby, where Jeff grew up, you’ll find this friendly sign on the back of the Friends Church. Who knew Jesus was such a whiny baby?

And if you go out with Jeff to dinner with old friends, you won’t be surprised to find that his jeans are covered with grease, because he’ll fix a car wearing whatever he has on, and not notice that they got ruined until his wife points out that fact in the entranceway to TGI Fridays.

Speaking of working on cars, Jeff’s brother Brian is working on renovating this old Dodge. He has a gorgeous ’57 Chevy that he has restored to mint condition. I can’t wait to see this one when he’s done with it! It’s going to be a long while, because he’s working on it in his spare time, but if it looks anything like the Chevy, it will be well worth the wait.

Here are a few picks of the fancy shmancy hotel we stayed in, with their continental breakfast and luxurious lobby. I earned a couple of free nights with Best Western because I’m a member of their rewards program, so we chose to use those nights while we were in Mentor.

It was a gorgeous hotel, and a much needed break from camping, before we launched into our seemingly endless stay at Lake Pymatuming (which eventually resembled the Hotel California … we couldn’t ever leave!).

While we were stuck at Pymatuming (and if you’re going to be stuck somewhere for an extra week, this was a good place to be!) we rode around on the bike and saw some really interesting sights! Who knew that this little corner of the world, which one would think is nothing but farmland, would have such amusing and pretty things to look at!

I have no idea WTF these things are, but they are on the porch of the office of a fenced-in boat/trailer storage yard near Andover, OH. I had to poke the camera through the fence to get the close up of this bat critter.

On our trip to Seward, we found that the backroads of Pennsylvania offer some fun and kitschy sights as well. This is a toy store shaped like a Stealth Bomber. I bought a mood ring shaped like yin/yang symbols, and Jeff and I both bought a finger puppet. His is the monster, and mine is the monkey. I finally have a finger monkey, Kristina and Stacy!!!

When we finally found ourselves released from whatever was keeping us stuck up north, we bolted home as fast as we could, without stopping. Well, Jeff had to stop to take a picture of this cotton field and to pick a boll of cotton.

We also managed to snap a shot of this water tower, without even stopping the car, with what was probably the strangest town slogan we saw on the entire trip: Claxton Georgia Fruitcake Capital of the World

But the happiest site, short of our own driveway, was this sign that said “Welcome to Florida.” I couldn’t have been happier if I was a college freshman on spring break, heading toward Daytona to do things I hope my parents would never hear about, nor show up on video on some sleazy pay-per-view station.

Final inventory of things lost, damaged or disposed of on the trip: one bin filled with various kitchen items, one portable grill, one bathroom rug, one pristine motorcycle, and–most importantly–the rut we had fallen into before we left home, oh so long ago.

Final inventory of things we didn’t have before we left, but brought home with us: one bag of dirty laundry, one kitschy can of smoked sausage for my kitchen collection of weird foods, one pummeled and beaten motorcycle, two finger critters, one Virgin Mary medal, one electric blanket, two new perspectives on life.

And here’s you a dog.

Well, we finally made it out of Ohio. In fact, we made it all the way to North Carolina before deciding it to call it a day. We tried to make it to Charlotte, but circumstances forced us to stop a little sooner than that. Strange, bizarre, yet now typical of this trip, circumstances. 

We hard-balled it, pedal to the metal, on the most direct southerly path we could find. No more lollygagging. We’re both ready to get home. We did, however, have to stop in Steubenville, OH for this picture, because Jeff is a big Dino fan.

He’s also a fan of live bait in vending machines.

 Anyway, we were cooking along, enjoying the fact that the trip was uneventful. We didn’t even think of it as boring, it was uneventful. Along the way, I was able to pick up an internet signal in one of the bigger cities, and checked on hotel rooms in the Charlotte area, because Jeff thought that would be a decent amount of driving for one day (12 hours). I found one a little north of there for a better price than we could get in Charlotte, but he wanted to push on a little further so he wouldn’t have to drive as far tomorrow.

Just after we crossed the state line into NC, the car started overheating. We were, as usual, at an exit ramp, so we pulled over and Jeff saw that the radiator hose had a leak. He cut off the leaking end and made a temporary fix, and said we would have to stop at the first hotel I found, after all, because he would have to get a new hose and didn’t know if we’d make it all the way to Charlotte.

See why I like Best Western? Always a nice room at a great price.

We checked in and Jeff started talking to someone in the lobby. Turns out this guy grew up in Lineville, PA, the place where we just fed the carp last week during our camping trip! What are the odds? What a small world! What an amazing coincidence!

After we got our room key, we headed up the road to Cracker Barrel, because we needed some “home cooked” food. If you’ve ever been to Cracker Barrel, you know that the walls are covered with rustic, antique signs. I always wondered if they were real, or just manufactured to look old and kitschy, but one sign in particular took me aback. It was for Pasco Magic, a product I’ve never heard of, but we live in Pasco County, and we’re certainly seeing a lot of magic!

Just as I was saying, “Hmmmm…” to myself, I saw the sign right next to it, which said Elkhorn City, KY. We just spent a week in Elkhorn City (see previous blogs for proof!!!). I had to rush back out to the car to get the camera because I couldn’t believe my own eyes and wanted to remember this “coincidence.”

Now, God willin’ and the creek don’t rise, we’re on our way home. We hope to pull in by Saturday night. Hopefully I won’t have to pull in the big guns (I was rubbing that Virgin Mary medal for all it was worth the whole way here) this time and we’ll just get there with no incidents.

Here I sit, in a campground miles from civilization, with a car that doesn’t run and a husband who just left on our only vehicle (the motorcycle) to have his ass handed to him by the local judge. Neither of us has any idea what will happen to him in court today (he received a ticket last week at the campground for having an open beer in the car when he went to the camp’s office for a bag of ice and was promised at least a $500 fine by the cop who gave it to him). We were supposed to be leaving for Florida today, immediately after he got out of court, but last night the car died, again. If things don’t go well for him today, and they decide to keep him for some reason, I’ll find myself in an interesting predicament.       

It’s been, go figure, a bizarre couple of days. Tuesday was fairly uneventful until the evening hours when the sky darkened early and the wind kicked up. We heard the unmistakable sound of tornado sirens in the distance so we battened down the hatches and put everything valuable in the car. Jeff’s brother, Brian, called us from Cleveland to let us know about the hellacious storm that they were experiencing and warn us that it was headed our way. All we could do is wait. There was nowhere to go, so we just watched the skies and planned that, if worse came to worse, we would duck into the brick shithouse (that’s literally what it is, so that’s the first time I’ve ever used that expression and meant it!).       

After a couple hours of blustering, the skies cleared and nothing ever happened. We did, however, get to see a stunning star show. In the pitch black campground, with little ambient light, we looked up and could see the Milky Way.       

Once the winds died down, Jeff could fire up the campstove, so he made the last of the fresh corn on the cob that we bought from the local farm. I mentioned this place in a previous blog, but I don’t know if I took the time to carefully describe it. It is a lovely place, with perfectly manicured lawns and flowers everywhere. The barn is bright red and the fields are lush and green. It’s almost as if it’s an enchanted land, it’s so idyllic. Their produce is off–the-charts good and they are obviously very prosperous.       

As I bit into my fresh from the field, super yummy corn, feeling each kernel explode with flavor in a delightfully sensual way, it occurred to me that in the olden days, these people would probably be accused of witchcraft by jealous neighbors who didn’t understand that some people just have a knack for goodness. I’m not even trying to be funny here. I really got it, as in “Oh, THAT’S how it happened!”    

Wednesday, we planned to ride the bike out to Seward, PA, where Jeff’s mom is buried. It was the one-year anniversary of her death and we wanted to pay our respects and see the headstone, which wasn’t there last year when we buried her ashes at her parents’ grave. It was too cold for the bike, so we took the car, which has been running great.       

The headstone turned out beautifully, and I wish I could spend some time to write a tribute to her, like I did for Pa when we were in Elkhorn City, but that will have to wait until we get home. Right now, things are so up in the air that I’m not in a proper mindset for that kind of thing.       

 We spent the day in Seward, revisiting where Jeff used to spend his summers, at his Grandma’s house. He used to sleep on the front porch, where it was cool, and one night he woke up around 1:00 AM to the sound of an angelic chorus. He says that it came from the church across the street, but he knew that there were no people there. Everything was pitch black, except the light from the street lamp.       

He sat up on the couch upon which he slept, watching the church for signs of life, and just listened to the singing. Finally, he rose and opened the front door of the porch, to walk toward the church. As soon as he opened the door, the singing instantly stopped. This was one of those “life-shaping” moments, and it defines who he is. It’s one of the reasons I love him like I do. He may not be perfect (where is he as I write this???) but he has a good soul.      

Another part of who Jeff is, is a man who loves a good sub sandwich and we can’t visit Seward without a trip to Stiles Market for a sandwich and some penny candy.       

Those two cakes near the two cans of pop are Gobs. We scored a bunch more penny candy, but why show off? And when was the last time you saw Bonomo Turkish Taffy???

We also have to buy a local confection called a Gob. A Gob is, basically, a cake sandwich with cream filling. They look amazing, but so far I have never had a Gob that had as much flavor as they look like they might possess. The two that we bought were no different. They look great, but taste bland.    

Because we hadn’t consumed enough crappy food, we stopped on the way back to camp for an ice cream cone at the Lick ‘n’ Putt. Wouldn’t you? Come on! It’s called the Lick ‘n’ Putt!    

Just as we were about to hit the state line back into Ohio, around 7:00 PM, the car started acting crazy. The radio lights started flashing, and the turn signals stopped working. The engine began chugging and we both said “Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.” We knew Jeff had court in the morning, and we still had to pack up the camping equipment. Our plan was to hitch up the trailer and have nothing left to do in the morning but tear down the tent and head out. We would be Florida bound by afternoon, provided all went well in court. But nooooooooooo. Now we had to deal with more car problems, in another state, no less.    

Fortunately, we made it back to camp before the car died. Jeff shut it down and tried to restart it. Nothing. Nada. Zip. It is an ex-parrot.    

Brian, his brother, called while we were dealing with this, and once again remarked on Jeff’s amazing luck. He added that old Chryslers were notorious for their ignition modules, voltage regulators and alternators going out. Well, we just had the ignition module fixed (see the $500 loose wire blog) so Jeff is going to order a voltage regulator on his way to court this morning at the local auto parts store. That way, maybe they’ll have one by this afternoon. If it’s not that, we’ll have to try an alternator.    

Since we had to eat, we hopped on the bike and headed for the closest restaurant to grab some dinner. We ended up at the Beachcomber, a shitty little tavern in the area (I don’t mean that as an insult. It’s actually a great place, but it’s one of those typical, wooden paneled taverns that you see in every town). We put on all of our leathers, helmets, gloves, sweatshirts, and anything else we could find to stay warm, because it was coooooooooold outside, too cold for a ride on the bike.    

As I sat there, eating my tavern food, drinking my shitty tavern wine, I suddenly experienced an Ernest Hemingway moment. I realized that this is what it is to be a writer: to experience life in a bizarre fashion and find a way to make it interesting for others to read about. Here’s hoping I’ve done that, otherwise I’m wasting my time in this bizarro world of mine. I could be living in a regular house, with a regular job, and a regular man.    

Yech. I shudder at the thought. I wouldn’t mind, however, if my muses dialed back the drama just a bit.   

Anyway, so here I sit, in a campground miles from civilization, with a car that doesn’t run and a husband who just left on our only vehicle (the motorcycle) to have his ass handed to him by the local judge. Neither of us has any idea what will happen to him in court today (he received a ticket last week at the campground for having an open beer in the car when he went to the camp’s office for a bag of ice and was promised at least a $500 fine by the cop who gave it to him). We were supposed to be leaving for Florida today, immediately after he got out of court, but last night the car died, again. If things don’t go well for him today, I’ll find myself in an interesting predicament.   

Here's you a dog.

Wow, so many events, so little internet connection with which to post a blog about them! I’m going to have to cram a lot into this blog, but first, here is a brief review of Virgin Mobile’s Broadband2Go service:

It. Is. Worthless.

We knew we were going to be on the road for an extended time, mostly in campgrounds, and access to free Wifi hotspots would be limited. So we shopped around for a portable, temporary solution. We chose Virgin Mobile’s Broadband2Go because it seemed like the most reliable and sound choice. We paid about $80 for a USB stick that scans the skies for a signal, and $60 for one month worth of service (5GB worth of emails, net surfing, streaming Netflix for those boring nights in the tent, etc.).

We are now almost done with that month and still have 4.7GB left because we can’t get a signal anywhere. When/if we do get a signal, it’s so weak that it takes forever to upload the pictures for this blog or even check my email. Never mind streaming any Netflix. Ain’t gonna happen. Heck, I get a cell phone signal on my cheapo Net10 phone, but Virgin Mobile can’t hook us up? I’m just sayin.

But enough bitching. I’ve said what I want to say. So there. Back to the trip. (But in case you’re curious, I’m sitting at a picnic table, in the dark, posting this by leeching off the campground office’s wifi.)

When last I wrote, we had settled in to our campsite on the OH/PA border and planned to return to Cleveland later in the week to fix the muffler and eat at Noce Pizza in Chardon, OH on the way in to town. We did both of those, and here is a brief review of Noce’s Grecian Pizza:

 It. Is. To. Die. For.

 Oh my, it is so incredibly tasty that words fail me. The crust is sublime and the toppings, similar to those on a gyro, are exquisite. I ordered an entire pizza and ate nothing but for the next two meals. (I would have continued, but we have no fridge and pizza doesn’t keep for long in a cooler or a tent.) If you are ever in Chardon, you would be making a big mistake if you didn’t stop in and eat mass quantities of their divine slices.

While we’re on the subject of food, we finally made some Campstove Spaghetti. In the early 90’s, Jeff and I moved to Los Angeles to try to become famous comedians (it didn’t pan out, obvs). We lived in a tent for six months, on the beach and in a nudist resort, and perfected the best spaghetti we’ve ever made.

This spaghetti can’t be replicated on anything but a Coleman stove (using Coleman fuel, not propane). That is apparently the secret ingredient, because we’ve used the exact same ingredients on many stoves since then, but like a charcoal grill adds a specific taste to burgers, Coleman fuel adds a nuance to spaghetti. I know it sounds gross, but believe me when I tell you we were literally two happy campers that night.

Let’s see … what else? Oh yeah, I took a ride in the little outboard fishing boat that Jeff rented! I haven’t been in a boat since I was in a pretty serious boat accident the summer that I was 14. Between the vertigo that I deal with on a daily basis (which causes seasickness) and fear of boats, I stayed far away from them.

But I trust Jeff, even if his head is filled with clowns, so I got on the boat and took a ride around the lake. I’m not saying I wasn’t filled with terror 97.3% of the time, but I did it, damn it!

I also now have a new euphemism for going to the restroom. This campground, unlike the last one with its horrid portapotties, has real toilets, in a nice solid brick building. However, it is still a campground, so there are lots of bugs and spiders in there. At night, there is a gigantic toad staking out the stalls, keeping us all safe from creepy crawlies. So, now whenever either of us has to use the facilitah (for you, Stacy and Kristina) we call it “visiting the toad.”

No trip to Lake Pymatuming would be complete without feeding the fish on the Spillway in Lineville, PA. This is a place where—for some reason that I’d look up if I could get a freakin’ internet signal—an unfathomable number of carp know that people will feed them bread if they just wait for it. They are rarely disappointed. You can buy bread from the Spillway concession and watch this nauseating show yourself, if you’re in the area.

Why is it nauseating? Well, it’s hard to describe without sounding mean, really, but there are thousands of these gigantic, oily, filthy fish fighting each other to get to the bread that is thrown. They gape their gigantic mouths and make disgusting smacking sounds while they practically kill each other over some stale bread (of which there is no shortage … these are not hungry fish, they are greedy fish).

On the other hand, feeding the seagulls at the Spillway was happy-fun time, even if they are just enormous pooping machines with wings. They catch the bread in midair and put on quite a show. Besides, I like seagulls. They’re fun birds.

At the Spillway, you will find the obligatory “name that nature” sign, where they tell you what wildlife you might see. I got a real kick out of the sign that tells you what kinds of birds are in the area and what they say. My particular favorite is how they describe the call of the Song Sparrow: “Maids! Maids! Maids! Hang up your tea kettle-ettle-ettle!” Personally, I think that whoever translated that birdspeak had taken a heroic dose of hallucinogens beforehand. But that’s just me.

So, why does it suck to be Jeff this week, when we seem to be having so much fun? Well, actually, those are his brother Brian’s words when he heard the latest story.

In addition to having to fix the muffler on the car, first we had to find a muffler for such an old vehicle. And since we don’t have a friggin’ internet connection, we couldn’t just call around first to find out who might have one in the area. We drove around Cleveland for about an hour before we finally found a place that had one in their warehouse in Euclid, so we had to go all the way out there for the muffler.

We did see this really cool statue, however, outside of one of the Napa stores we visited. I covet this statue.

Now the muffler is fixed, and we also now have brake fluid (which we apparently did not, previous to that moment), but we were driving down a back, country road when suddenly the car started misfiring. We managed to find our way to a local garage in the nearest town, where a very kind and generous mechanic simply reached in and reattached one of the wires that had not been fastened properly when we had the car tuned up, in Florida, before we left lo these many moons ago (it feels like years since we’ve been home).

But the kicker is, yesterday as we were packing up our gear to get ready to leave northeast Ohio and head to our next destination, Jeff drove up to the campground store to get a bag of ice for the cooler.

Let me first ask you this: have you ever driven 10 miles per hour? Can you drive 10 miles per hour? I’m truly anal about going the posted speed limit, and even I can’t drive 10 miles per hour. Hell, the car won’t GO 10 miles per hour, without riding the brake! Are you beginning to get an inkling of what’s coming?

Yes, he got pulled over by the park security officer for going 20 in a 10 MPH zone. But since he had a beer in the car with him (remember he was within the campground, not out on the public roads) the park cop gave him a ticket and he has to appear in court next week. Never mind that we live in Florida and he would have to drive back up here to appear. Never mind that he could just pay the fine by mail. He has to stay here in the area to go to court to pay a … drumroll please … 500 F*CKING DOLLAR FINE!

So, yeah. We’re staying here in northeast Ohio another week, at the same campground we’ve been at all week, where we’ve already done all the local things we set out to do. We had to move to another campsite, however, because it’s Labor Day weekend and the primo site we had was already booked. But I like the new site better, actually. It’s huge and lovely, and has lots of trees, with a really homey vibe. So I guess I’ll just do some writing (no internet surfing, natch), and Jeff will do some fishing, and we’ll, once again, reboot and remain Zen about this latest debacle.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooom. Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom.

Oh yeah, here’s you a dog.