For Frying Out Loud (13 page)

August 2008

TOO DARN HOT

I just got back from Phoenix, Arizona where it was 114 degrees at high noon. Everybody told us we'd be okay, it was dry heat. Please. You could fry a frittata on the bench in front of the hotel. I got third degree burns of the frittata.

This was some fancy schmancy resort, with rooms going for $500 dollars a night in the season. That would be winter. In August, they say “Let the lesbians have it for a literary conference.” It's practically free for a fabulous room, impeccable service and, when you go outside, you feel like you're hiking inside a blow dryer.

The conference – Golden Crown Literary Society – celebrated lesbian writers and books published in 2007. And it was wonderful. I was invited to speak on the topic of humor, which historically, lesbians as a species are thought to lack. I started class with the old joke “How many lesbians does it take to change a light bulb?” Answer: “That's not funny.” Fortunately, the crowd tittered.

Afterwards, at the gorgeous pool, we dunked in the cool water. We got out to eat lunch but two bites into the meal we dizzied from the heat and settled for sucking frozen Margaritas through a straw while applying the frosty glass to our wrists.

Two minutes later, lest heat stroke set in, we violated the sacrosanct parents' rule and did not wait the requisite half hour after eating before swimming. For the record, we did not get the oft-threatened cramps, but I nearly needed a tour of the local burn unit after touching the metal pool ladder. Three minutes after that we were back inside the hotel.

At 6 p.m. (109 degrees) some sadist suggested a visit to the Wild West Tourist town on hotel property. We survived the four minute walk across the steaming desert parking lot, entered “town,” and immediately got “caught” in a faux gun fight.
Three suspected out of work actors, poor bastards, “killed” each other, winding up flayed out in the desert dirt.

Hoping heat exhaustion didn't lay me out next, we set off for the saloon, by way of the air-conditioned “jail.” The “sheriff” offered shotgun wedding re-enactments for a fee. We decided not to ask for a same-sex shotgun wedding, unclear whether they had access to live ammunition.

Finally, we guzzled a beer and got the hell out of Dodge, thrilled to be heading for A/C and being able to use the phrase “got the hell out of Dodge” literally. At the hotel, where it was now a balmy 106 degrees, I studied the architecture and wondered if the three-sided adobe/concrete entrance was supposed to replicate a Pee Posh Indian pueblo oven. See the Mesquite grilled columnist stagger into the lobby.

At the Saturday night award ceremony and reception, we met and talked to readers and writers from all over the country. A reader of my books marched up to Bonnie and said “Gee, I'd pictured you as much more butch.” Neither of us knew what to do with that comment, so Bonnie just smiled, butchly.

Conference organizers had arranged for two Native American men to entertain us before the awards. Following applause for the intricate dance, one performer told us he was an attorney, working on Native American human rights issues and likened their fight against discrimination to that of the gay women in the room. In the early 1900s the Gila River had been diverted by non-natives, causing entire communities to disappear from lack of water. Recently, a series of dams helped reverse that action, so the Maricopa tribe has its water back, along with mammoth casinos, sucking dollars from the white man, which is eminently fair.

On Sunday, we left the hotel for a drive in our air-conditioned rental car up Superstition Mountain – a collection of hills, mesas, buttes, and cacti I had previously only seen in TV westerns. I expected black and white. But no, it was all in living brown. A sign at a scenic pull-off warned us not to put our hands anywhere where we couldn't see them. As if I ever would.

The rutted dirt road wound up the mountainside, with nary a guard rail and two way traffic comin' round the mountain, hauling boats, campers, and head-ons waiting to happen. Neither of us fears heights, but it was a hair-raising ride, worthwhile for the awesome canyon, gully and mountain views. We were warned to beware of wildlife, and although we kept a wary lookout, the wildest life we saw were several Geico spokesnewts running across the road. We did see the rare and gorgeous blooming cactus flowers – rare because only a handful of morons are stupid enough to visit the desert in August to see them.

Next, we visited a friend of Bonnie's who lives in a terrific resort and retirement community for lesbians called The Pueblo in Apache Junction, AZ. Hundreds of women live there, only the place was nearly deserted because it was August and these lesbians have the good sense to go north for the summer. Like Care Free resort in Florida, Rainbow Vision in Santa Fe and potentially one eventually here in Sussex County, more and more of these retirement options are springing up. Who'd a thunk it back before Stonewall.

Our final weekend adventure was getting home. Let's face it, air travel sucks these days. Between the complimentary CAT scan, an over-sold plane in Phoenix, and thunder storms closing runways in Atlanta, it actually took us a half hour longer to get from Phoenix to Philly than it did to get home from Beijing.

In hindsight, for scenic views and lesbian literature it was a wonderful trip. And I learned a few things.

1. Pricey resorts can count on us cheap lesbians to save their asses off-season.

2. When it's too hot to eat you do not save calories by drinking frozen cocktails.

3. I newly respect the term “You're toast.”

4. And when people say “It's not the heat, it's the humidity,” tell them they are full of crap.

Back in Rehoboth, the thermometer said 92 degrees. Felt like a cold snap.

August 2008

DON'T HASSLE ME, I'M LOCAL

Can I bitch?

I was driving on Rehoboth Avenue yesterday when the car in front of me screeched to a stop, punched his flashers and sat behind a car with its trunk flung open. Clearly a visitor. Now you and I, but obviously not the fellow in the double parked car, know that an open trunk is a sign of, well, an open trunk. And it often bears no relation to whether people are packing up to leave the parking space.

So the light is green, but nobody can go because this yutz is waiting in case a space opens up this millennium. Finally, after stowing strollers that look like steam rollers, kites, boogey boards, coolers and a little league team, car number one tries to pull out, but car number two is camped behind it with nowhere to go because cars me through ten are gridlocked. Amid the sonata for horns, everybody misses their dinner reservation. Sometimes I wonder if vacationers leave their brains and manners back home with the cat.

I love the Saturday Night Fights. People drive around, see a vacant parking space and drop off the frailest person in the car to stand in the spot until the vehicle can come back around the block to claim it. Naturally, in the interim, six football players in a steroid rage drive up in a Humvee, leaving grandma to defend her position. Trust me, chivalry is as dead as Richard Nixon.

I actually witnessed somebody almost run over a tween saving a spot for Daddy's Caddy. It's like Armegeddon out there, with Category 6 screaming matches. Mind you, these are the same people who jog up and down the boardwalk and run 10ks. God forbid they'd have to walk a block and a half to buy taffy.

Our traffic circle on the way in and out of town is another crime scene. The circle actually works pretty well for anybody
who reads the sign “Yield to traffic in circle.” What part of IN CIRCLE don't they understand?

Cars race to the circle and play chicken with drivers coming around from their left, practically playing bumper cars. If drivers entering the circle do yield, they often don't know when to come out of their coma. Here's a tip. If there's room for two Budweiser trucks and a team of Clydesdales between you and the car coming around the circle, move your ass.

Conversely, some fool is IN the circle but sees a car approaching and stops to let it in. Like lemmings, every car downtown now floods the circle and the goofball who stopped can cancel his hotel reservation because he'll still be sitting there by morning. Chivalry is as dead as Herbert Hoover.

Of course, our visiting pedestrians can disrupt traffic brilliantly as well. Throngs of aggressive jaywalkers, pushing fleets of baby strollers leap into the streets whenever they feel like it, making the screech of tires as ubiquitous a summer sound as chirping sea gulls. Yesterday I saw a man holding a pizza box with the lid up, eating a slice as he tried to cross the road. Do you want a seeing eye dog with that pepperoni?

And what's with the befuddled curb huggers, forgetting that green means go and red means stay. Nightly, they do the “should I stay or should I go?” dance on the corner, with their choice bearing no relation to traffic signals. It's like whack-a-mole in the street, only nobody gets a stuffed bear.

Down here on the sand, behavior is even worse. I see people arriving in moving vans, setting up the Kennedy compound, with pop-up shelters, portable gazebos (with mesh ventilating panels) beach cabanas, collapsible tables and industrial sized coolers. I love the ad for the cabana with a zippered door, offering “to keep out the sun and the sand.” If I wanted to keep out the sun and sand I'd be on a bar stool on Baltimore Avenue.

And then these homesteaders plop their village directly in front of me, not five feet from my chair. Seriously, people 15-feet of sand is the demilitarized zone.

Have you seen the new 8-foot umbrellas that could shelter half of Haiti? One good gust and the things will be in Portugal. Oh, that's right, they come with anvils on the bottom to anchor them. And don't forget the wireless laptop and video games. It's the beach, people, bring a towel, a hat and a book (preferably, mine).

And these same imbeciles have no concept that at some point, given that the moon revolves around the earth, the tide will come in. They always look so shocked and expect us to move back, or worse, welcome them into our family. Am I rude not to want strangers' butts scooting onto my towel?

And what's with those footballs that make noise? Tossing a pig skin I can understand, but one that whistles Dixie is just annoying.

And while time flies when you are having fun, sand flies when your kids run in flip flops around my head. Leaving the beach? Check which way the wind is blowing. I know you want to shake out your towel, but I don't need a complimentary dermabrasion. Well, maybe I do but that should be my decision.

Look, I want you to enjoy your rock music, but stick it in your ear. Personally, I'd rather hear show tunes but you wouldn't want me to subject your posse to
Hello, Dolly
, would you? And of course, do not feed the sea gulls. When you go home we're left with gulls dive bombing us like we were Tippi Hedren in
The Birds
.

And finally, the reason dogs are not allowed on our boardwalk anymore (they are allowed in areas of the beach at the state park and for that I am grateful), is directly related to the visitor behavior I witnessed yesterday. A lady pulls into a parking spot, gets out with her small fluffy poodle, sees the No Dogs on Boardwalk sign, picks up the pooch and sashays onto the boardwalk anyway. A police officer sees her, and she says “I'll just hold her.” He tries to be nice, smiles and looks the other way.

Then the woman puts Fifi down to make a Great Danesized deposit on the boardwalk. And leaves! Chivalry is as dead as Rin Tin Tin.

Okay, I know my town owes a world of gratitude to our wonderful visitors, but look, it's 104 degrees out and I'm grumpy. I will now drag my little beach chair down to the water and try to cool off. Ahhhhhhh. There, there, I'm better now. Thanks for indulging me. And come visit. I know you'll behave.