A Great American blog

So now I think you’re caught up. All of that was back in June. Now it is nearing the day before departure, and I finally started this old blog. We are scheduled to leave in less than 24 hours, and I still am waiting for the day when my parents sit us down calmly and Ashton Kutcher pops out to say, “PUNK’D!”

But, alas, our house is in the shambled state of a family who is about to travel around the country for a year. If you can imagine what that kind of house looks like, feel free. If you can’t, I’ll help. It’s a cross between the house of a family who is actually moving out for good and the house of a family who has just flat-out lost their minds.

Our entire collection of picture frames, vintage movie posters, and miscellaneous artwork still adorn the walls. But the functional stuff is almost entirely obsolete. For example, I tried shampooing my hair last night and I had to go grab the “family size” one from Mom’s shower.

“Everything else is packed, dear,” she said sweetly.

Boy, have I heard enough of that line lately.

Even the sweetest tone in the world would not calm my nerves at this point.

Oh and here’s the other killer. There is now a monster of an RV parked in my driveway, officially alerting the neighborhood of our obvious insanity.

“It’s the Falcon 2.0,” George announced proudly as he showed us his new $90,000 toy – a Concord model Coachmen RV, with a cobalt and white exterior and plush leather interior.

“I feel like I’m in a traveling circus,” Ray said dryly. His boyhood excitement had vanished somewhere mid-July when he realized he could no longer be in the community soccer league with his friends.

“Don’t expect that feeling to change,” I reminded him. “We’re being kidnapped by a couple of clowns.”

These days, I’ve gotten used to surprises becoming ordinary occurrences. And then they don’t feel much like surprises anymore.

I tried pinching myself to wake up from this zany dream when I was introduced to Glenda, our 67-year-old tutor George hired from Craigslist. She has wiry, black, Medusa-style hair and tiny, purple wiry glasses that make her eyes look purple too. They might as well be, because I’m pretty sure she is an alien. Ray is convinced of it.

“Hello, Rehnquists! I can’t wait to be a part of this adventure!” she exclaimed with the enthusiasm of a cheerleader. “The learning adventure, that is. Oh but the traveling should be great too!” She snorted.

George has instructed her not to begin lessons until August 16, since that is when we would technically be going on summer vacation. Until then, we are on summer break and she is just some bizarre woman living with us.

She is a sweet woman and all, but she is overly optimistic about everything. She thinks a power outage is “an electrical pause” and a thunderstorm is “a bowling party in heaven.” I cannot take a person seriously who speaks purely in euphemisms.

And she uses every available moment as a teaching opportunity, which can be condescending at times. When George was cooking meat loaf last week and left the oven on, she taught Ray and me a full lesson about kitchen safety. Personally, I think George should have been the one receiving that lesson.

My parents assured us to just think of her as the “kooky old grandma” we’re bringing along on our trip.

“And if she gets totally crazy, we can always dump her off somewhere in New Mexico,” George said with a laugh.

Depending on how things go, I might follow up with him about the seriousness of that offer.

But for now, she is Glenda. She is goofy and her clothes never match. But other than that, she kind of gives me this Mary Poppins vibe, and maybe that’s something I can get used to.

Most of my friends don’t believe I’m actually going on this excursion either. When I told Trish she asked me if I had taken drugs lately. She called George for verification and when he confirmed it, she almost hit the floor.

Trish and I have been best friends since we were toddlers who had to share a mat during naptime because our classroom didn’t have enough. Ever since then, I never really needed any other friends because I could always easily find her. Four blocks down and then the sixth house on the left.

Now I have no idea where I will be in the next six months in relation to her house, or in relation to anywhere for that matter! What if she makes a new best friend?

“Write to me every day, Ami-zing!” she pleaded, tugging on my denim jacket after she accepted the reality of the news.

“I’ll send you postcards from cool places,” I assured her gently. “Like Hollywood, New York City, Las Vegas…”

We were sitting in Mrs. Hamper’s language arts homeroom class on the last day of school when we were discussing this. Mrs. Hamper, being the sly eavesdropper she has been trained to be as a schoolteacher, casually walked over to my desk during our conversation.

“That sounds like a marvelous opportunity!” she congratulated me. “But what will you do about schooling?”

I was supposed to start high school next year at Sweet Home High School. I was actually very disappointed about missing that particular year of school because it meant I would not be eligible for the school yearbook in 10th grade. You see, in order to apply for the yearbook staff as a sophomore, you need to take an introductory writing class and submit writing samples as a freshman. I would never get my chance to write the exposé on rodent infestation in lockers or write the personality profile of the prom king, who would undoubtedly be my boyfriend, making it easy for me to obtain such a story.

See, if you couldn’t tell, I’ve already been thinking about this.

Anyway, I told Mrs. Hamper about the hired tutor (who I did not yet know as Glenda) and explained the home-schooling proposition my parents had.

Mrs. Hamper seemed a little more at ease after that. “Well, you’ll have to keep me updated on your travels. A postcard from each state!”

I rolled my eyes. “That’s a lot of stamp money, Mrs. Hamper.”

Just then, her eyes lit up like an Einstein-light-bulb idea. “How about you send e-mails from each state then? You can upload pictures to your computer.” She paused. “How about you write a blog?”

Trish and I both started laughing. To us, blogs seemed like a mundane hobby of a geeky day trader or a baseball card collector who still lived in his parents’ basement.

MySpace is the closest we would get to straddle that line of Internet exploitation.

Before I had the chance to give Mrs. Hamper an official “no” to her suggestion, the bell rang and class began. I had all but forgotten about the prospect until she pulled me aside later as I was leaving class.

“Ami, I really think you should consider the blog idea,” she repeated. “I know it may not seem like the ‘cool’ thing to do, but it will be an easy, convenient way to keep everyone else posted of your latest travels. And not to mention it will make a great memoir of your trip for years down the road.”

I cringed. “I appreciate your advice, but I don’t think anyone would want to read what I write, Mrs. Hamper. Myself included.”

“Well, then what makes you think anyone will want to read what you write in the school newspaper or yearbook?” She smiled. “Ami, I’ll tell you what. If you at least try to start this blog, I will talk to Mr. Brighton at Sweet Home High and see if you can use those blog entries as a writing sample for the yearbook application.”

My jaw dropped. “You would do that?”

“Darling, there is nothing more powerful than the written word. Or in this case, the typed word,” she said. “You are about to embark on an amazing adventure that very few, if any, other people have ever had the chance to do. It would be a crime for you not to record it.”

I nodded slowly. She was right.

I knew I always liked her.

“OK, Mrs. Hamper. You convinced me. I’ll give it a shot,” I promised. “Just please don’t comment on it when I make grammar mistakes, OK?”

Mrs. Hamper laughed. “I can’t promise you that. But I doubt you will be making very many of them. You’re a strong writer, Ami.”

I don’t know why this woman was boosting me up so much, but I really liked it. I blushed. “Thank you. I want to write novels some day.”

“We’ve got so many great American novels out there. What we need now is the great American blog. I’m looking forward to reading your first published work.” She put her hand on my shoulder reassuringly. “Remember, Ami, the future is unwritten. Only you can be the one to fill in the blanks.”

And that was where Bloggin’ America was born.

Thank you, Mrs. Hamper. I know you are one of the five people reading this so I figured I would do a personal shout out.

P.S. I’m sorry for the colloquial wordage in my title, Mrs. Hamper. But Blogging America is already the name of some political book out there. Plus it’ll be kind of cool when I’m perched on top of Falcon 2.0 in Nowheresville, Wyoming (where hopefully there will somehow be WiFi), and some unassuming Wyominger will come up to me and say, “Hey there, girl. Whadya doin’?”

And I’ll say, “Oh, I’m just bloggin’ America.”

Maybe he’ll go buy a computer to read it!

An idea is born.

However, the next day was actually quite different from all the other “reclaiming fatherhood” days George had marked in the past.

SPOILER ALERT: This is where the story finally gets interesting.

George’s red Corolla pulled up to Sweet Home Junior High School promptly at three o’clock. I climbed into the Falcon (yes, like the Millennium Falcon) and was jealous to see Ray in the passenger seat with a root beer float from A & W in his hand.

“Ugh, you got Ray a float?” I asked with envy.

“Relax, kid, we got you one, too,” George took another float from the cup holder and handed it back to me. “I’m taking you guys to the park. We have lots to go over.”

I punched my straw into the lid and braced myself for what I could only imagine would be an afternoon involving an uneven game of trivial pursuit and a lecture about conifer leaves at the neighborhood park, Strawberry Hill.

George had something a little different in mind. When we arrived to the Hill, George unloaded the car with our picnic blanket and a basket of unidentified objects. I assumed the travel-size trivial pursuit game had snuck its way in there.

“I love seeing the perennials in bloom,” he said casually as we climbed to the top of our favorite hill. It wasn’t much of a climb, but when I was little, it seemed like a large feat. My parents would have us reenact the “Jack and Jill” story as we went up and rolled down. We hadn’t been back in at least a year.

I wasn’t interested in making small talk with him right now. Especially about late-spring flora. I was much more concerned with whatever he had up his sleeve. And in that basket.

I laughed and muttered something incomprehensible to show him I had heard what he said but didn’t really care to continue a conversation about it. I suppose that’s typical teenager behavior.

“Kids, sit down.” He laid out the blanket on top of the hill. Ray immediately jumped on it, bringing some dirt from his sneakers with him.

“I don’t want to play board games,” Ray said before George had a chance to take it out.

Wow, the kid was smarter than I thought.

George chuckled. “No board games today. I want to show you something.” He opened the basket and removed what appeared to be nothing but… maps. Folded up road maps with drawings and highlighter marks all over them.

The maps were all of different regions of the United States. There were two maps of the entire country. The first had all of the states color-coded in some way, while the second one had a date in each state.

“Is this a geography test?” I groaned.

“I know all fifty state capitals!” Ray exclaimed. “Montgomery, Alabama; Juneau, Alaska; Phoenix, Arizona–”

George put his finger up to silence his son. “No, Ami, not a test. And Ray, that’s great. I’m so proud of you for doing well in school. But wouldn’t you like to actually go to these states instead of just reading about them? There’s a great big country out there…” He trailed off.

“You mean we’re taking a summer vacation outside of Oregon?” I squealed. “Where are we going?”

“I want to go to New York!” Ray yelped. “Or Disney World! Or Kentucky!”

George laughed. “Check, check, and check.”

“No,” I butted in. “I want to go to Hollywood or Las Vegas. Or actually… Niagara Falls.”

George nodded at each place mentioned. “Consider it done.”

My excitement slightly faded as I shot my father a bewildered look. “George, all those places are really far away from each other.”

George winced a little when I called him by his name. He then switched back to the confidence of his plan. “Yes, I know. But we’ll have time. A year should give us plenty of time to see every stinking bit of this country we’ll ever want to see.”

My jaw dropped simultaneously with Ray’s. “A year? What? You must be joking.”

“In all your years of knowing me, have you known me to be much of a joking man? I have everything planned out. Ready?” He took a breath as though he knew he was about to launch into a very prepared and highly anticipated explanation of this insane idea.

“We are renting out our house, buying an RV, and hitting the open road. I figure we can start by finishing off whatever we haven’t seen in Oregon on our way to the Washington border, head to Spokane and Seattle, then scoot on over to Montana, snake down to Idaho and then Nevada. Then, of course, you’ll get to see Vegas, Ami—”

At the sound of my name, it brought me back down to Earth. I shook my head and cut him off. “Do you hear what you’re saying? You can’t possibly think we’re going to pick up and leave everything for a year to go travel the country. Just because we’ve never been anywhere else, it doesn’t mean we have to do it all at once.”

George cut me off again. “What better time than now? I want to make sure I get to know you guys before you run off to college in a few short years. I have already arranged with my colleagues to work remotely for the year.”

I gasped. I couldn’t believe he had already started making plans for this outrageous idea.

“What about school? Does that mean we’re done with school?” Ray asked anxiously.

“No, we will hire a tutor for both of you to keep you aware of your grade’s curriculum so you won’t be behind the following year. But honestly, what better way to learn than to be out traveling and experiencing the world around us? Fifty states in fifty weeks. You’ll see it all.” George smiled smugly. “I’ve got every question you kids can dream of already answered.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I’ve got one. What does Mom think of this?”

George bellowed with laughter. “Nice try, Am. She is shopping for RVs online as we speak.”

Reclaiming fatherhood

So, the initial concept of traveling was planted into our brains in late May. The subject was dropped until two weeks later when Mom and George were getting into one of their post-dinner arguments. I say “one of” them because they happened so frequently these days. And each time, they always seemed angrier and louder than the night before.

Ray and I were loading the dishwasher in the kitchen and eavesdropping on the discussion at the dinner table. But as they kept raising their voices, I’m sure they knew we were listening.

“… You just don’t understand, Ellie,” George was saying sternly. “I’m the one who works hard to make all the money and give you the life you want to live. You can’t keep demanding more of me at home and expecting more money to come in at the same time!”

“You’re not the only one who works, George! You think you’re exhausted after long days at the office? Those 50-hour weeks are tough, I’m sure, but do you know what it’s like to work 100-hour weeks as a full-time mom, nanny, and chef? When do I get to put my feet up after a stressful day? Guess what, my job never ends.”

“You need help? Hire a nanny. We can afford it,” George shot back nastily.

“Oh, great idea. So you can have yet another person raise your kids instead of you?” Mom lowered her voice before saying this, “You want to know something? Ami doesn’t even call you ‘Dad.’ She will only call you George. And that’s not even your real first name. You just idolize that goddamn Star Wars and live in your fantasy world all day long. Well, this is the reality.”

This was always the go-to finale of the argument. Mom would attack his Star Wars obsession, and Dad would say she doesn’t know what “passion” is and how it is the foundation of all stories of our generation. Blah, blah, blah. Then he would run off to go read the continuing Star Wars novel series or watch The Empire Strikes Back with commentary.

This time, he did not address that part of the attack though. He did not quote Obi Wan Kenobi or Yoda. He used his own words. “She…she… doesn’t call me Dad anymore?”

“Anymore?” Mom scoffed. “She hasn’t since she was Ray’s age.”

It’s true. I never really thought much behind the reasoning, but he just looked more like a George than a Dad to me. Plus, since he wanted to be George Lucas so badly, I figured it was a compliment to refer to him as such. It was never meant in a resentful way for his lack of “fatherhood.” I just didn’t see him in that way. I didn’t go to him for all the serious, parent stuff. Neither did Ray. That was always Mom’s department. Now I can see why she felt like she was doing the job alone.

I think it hit George even harder that he actually hadn’t noticed me calling him George in all these years. It’s not like I would do it behind his back.

He sighed. There was a long silence.

Ray and I exchanged worried glances. I don’t know how much of it he had heard or understood, but he looked upset. We hurriedly finished loading the dishwasher and snuck out the back door of the kitchen through the patio so our parents wouldn’t know we had heard all of that.

That evening, I was rushing through some pre-algebra homework so I could watch TV before going to sleep. With only two weeks left of junior high school, I had already mentally started my summer.

As I was frantically packing up my backpack to catch The Real World at 10 p.m., there was a soft knock on my door. George opened it before I granted him access.

“Hey, Ami,” he said with a smile. “You need any help with homework?”

Well, this was already unusual. At this time of night, George would be in his study reading or watching the news before bed. The only time he would come knock on my door was to see if I wanted to watch A New Hope with him (that was the least boring of the six).

I found his shallow attempt at an overnight fatherhood a bit offensive. I shot him a puzzled look. “I’m all set. Thanks, Father of the Year.” I rolled my eyes.

He sat down on my bed. “I deserve that.”

I turned on the TV just as the opening credits began rolling. “You don’t have to do this, George. You don’t have to come in here tonight and have a heart-to-heart. It’s not that big of a deal if you’re not here much. We still love you.”

I tried to be reassuring in the quickest way possible so he would leave and I could watch my show.

Luckily, George wasn’t looking for a father-daughter chat tonight either. He wasn’t too good at expressing his emotions, and I wasn’t comfortable sharing mine with him.

“Well, I just wanted to let you know, I’m off work tomorrow,” he announced.

“On a Wednesday?” I gasped. George usually works six days a week, with only Sundays off. He runs his own business, but he runs it like an army commander. He has always stressed the importance of committed business practice.

“Yes, on a Wednesday. Your mother needs a day off, too. I’m going to take you guys to school tomorrow and pick you up. Then I thought we could all go out to dinner and spend some time together,” he said quickly and excitedly, like a child talking about a new toy.

I didn’t take my eyes off the TV. “Uhhhh, OK, sounds great.”

I knew what he was trying to do. Spend some time with us for a day and then make up for all those years of lost time. We would be best friends by the end of the day, and then he would go back to work on Thursday and everything would resume normally. He would have these epiphanies about once every six months and that’s usually when we would take day trips to the mountains or something. Tomorrow, I’m sure, would be no different.

Let’s talk about… the weather.

The summers in Sweet Home generally don’t get this hot. Usually, if I wear a spaghetti-strap tank top, I still get goose bumps in the shade. We have the fog from the valley and the crispness from the Cascades to keep the air cool in the summer and the winters moderate. But today it hit 90 and that’s the point I avoid the outdoors at all cost to dodge the risk of bursting into flames.

I don’t know if you care or if that’s how I’m supposed to start a blog. I just figured weather is something everybody can relate to. That’s why well-meaning strangers use it in a desperate attempt to make conversation with one another. So, you, whoever is reading this, can easily relate to my hot day—because let’s be honest, who hasn’t experienced a hot day before? Maybe someone who lives in Antarctica or something, I don’t know. Anyway, I chose that as the beginning of this entry because I figured it’s something we all have in common. And once you get to know me a little better, you’ll probably see that I will have very little in common with you from here on out. Let’s just call this my “hook.” Mrs. Hamper would be proud.

Speaking of Mrs. Hamper, she is the one who got me into this blog nonsense to begin with. She thought it would be a way to “share my travels with the world” (the world?! If anyone besides my immediate family and Trish actually read this, I will be thoroughly humiliated). But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

I’ll try to start at the beginning, but “beginning” is such a relative term. I’m sure you don’t want to hear about the beginning of my life, because that’s 14 years worth of life we’re talking about here and no one has that kind of time. Plus, if you are one of the five people who will be reading this, then you know my life story anyway. But then again, hasn’t every day been part of the story of today, at least in a small way? It doesn’t matter. I’ll just summarize. (This is why when I actually do become an author, I will hire a super sophisticated, fancy editor to edit out all this kind of crap and only leave the good stuff.)

Let me run through the basics. There are four of us in the Rehnquist clan of Sweet Home, Oregon. (Yes, that is a real place. Google it if you don’t believe me.) My mother is Eleanor Elizabeth Rehnquist now, but her maiden name is Kerriworth. She is probably the most normal one out of the bunch. She doesn’t have any weird habits like the rest of us, except that she tends to burn things when she attempts to cook and she talks to our cat Jango sometimes.

My father is Christopher George Rehnquist, but he goes by “C. George Rehnquist” on his business card. That’s because he thinks he is George Lucas. By that, I mean he is the biggest Star Wars nerd I have ever met. I haven’t met any others, but I’m pretty sure he takes the cake… at least in the state of Oregon. You’ll see a few examples of why in a minute once I list off the family names.

My nine-year-old brother is Raymus Luke Rehnquist. Luke is obviously after Luke Skywalker. Anyone who knows even peanuts about Star Wars knows about Luke Skywalker, so no need to explain who he is. Raymus, an unsuspecting Star Wars reference, is named for Captain Raymus Antilles, who was the captain of Tantive IV during the Clone Wars. A lot of people might remember him better as the one who had C-3PO’s memory wiped so Leia would never find out who her parents really were. George liked the name because Raymus was a hard worker and a loyal servant right up until the end when Darth Vader force-choked him for not revealing the hidden Death Star plans. Little Ray doesn’t know the tragic fate of his namesake yet, and I think we’re going to tell him that on the same day we break the news to him about Santa Claus.

Lastly, there is me, your esteemed blog writer, Ami. You will never hear me refer to myself as this, but my full name is Amidala Jaina Rehnquist. My first name is for Queen Padme Amidala, who is Anakin Skywalker’s wife as well as the mother of Luke and Leia. She was one of the brightest and most talented children on her home planet of Naboo and ultimately rose to her status as queen. Although her character’s name wasn’t officially mentioned until 1999 in The Phantom Menace, George managed to unearth the character’s identity deep within a George Lucas biography a few years beforehand. My middle name, Jaina, is the name of one of Leia and Han Solo’s daughters. My father says my name represents the importance of remembering history, as in Amidala, and the promise of the future, as in young Jaina.

I don’t really buy that crap, so I always go by Ami. Most of my friends don’t even know the Star Wars reference, and they think it’s just a cool word for “friend” in French. So that works too.

Trish calls me Ami-zing, which is my favorite nickname. It originated during a kickball game in the fourth grade. I made a diving catch to get the last person out on the other team to win us the game. A fellow teammate high-fived me and said, “You’re amazing!” Trish shook her head, smiled, and added, “No, she’s Ami-zing!” And just like that, my nickname was born.

Well, anyway, that’s the Rehnquist family portrait. We never were your normal American family, but maybe that’s because we never really knew what it meant to be normal or American anyway. You see, no one in my family has ever left Oregon. My dad claims he went to California once when he was three years old, but I don’t buy that.

I guess no one ever really talked about traveling. For vacations, we would hike through the Cascades or camp on the river near Mount Hood. It was actually Ray who was the first one to point this glaring omission in our family’s travel repertoire.

“Mom, you know how big the United States is?” Ray asked eagerly one evening before dinner. He was holding a map of the United States behind his back where my Mom couldn’t see.

“Bigger than France but smaller than China,” my mom replied, her tone uninterested and prepared, as though she had rehearsed the answer.

Ray nodded. He laid the map out on the kitchen counter. “Look! We’re all the way up here, and there is all this area that’s technically the US. That means we don’t need a passport to go there.”

Mom patted Ray’s mess of dirty blond hair affectionately. “Yes, honey, but what need do we have to see anything else? Everything we need is here in Sweet Home.”

Mom was born a small-town girl and always would be. Her greatest pleasures were simple and could all be attained without ever leaving 127 Evergreen Lane. She loved baking oatmeal raisin cookies on Sundays after church, reading romance novels, and tending to her heathers, dogwoods, and lilies in her beautiful garden on our seven-acre property.

“What about the Status of Libertines, the Great Canyon, and the Russia More Mountain?” Ray exclaimed, wide-eyed in disbelief that she forgot all of these things.

The sad fact that Ray mispronounced all of those American landmarks should show some mark of deprivation. I only knew about these illustrious places from the Internet and historical references in textbooks and my friends bragging about visiting them.

Mom had continued stirring the red marinara sauce we were having with our spaghetti dinner. Ray pouted quietly and tugged at her apron desperately.

At this point, I was balled up on the loveseat in the living room with my eyes protruding from Teen magazine, secretly observing this spectacle. I was sharing a silent moment of pride and respect for my little brother for daring to ask the question I never would: Why can’t we be like all the other American families? Why are we so different?

I should have gone in to the kitchen and joined Ray’s team. I would love to travel. Or so I thought. I was also kind of scared of the rest of the world, since Sweet Home was really all I knew. Things made sense here and people liked me. I don’t know if that would happen everywhere else.