So it looks like Tenzin will be joining the ranks of the unemployed soon. This has less to do with the economy/downsizing and more to do with his employers just generally being assholes. I’ve been thinking about what I’d do if one of them called the house, i.e., gracefully pass Tenzin the phone, tell them off, hang up. I’m wondering what Michelle Obama would do in this situation (this is how I handle a lot of problems now — WWMOD). She kind of seems like the Whooper of Asses in her house, so I’m just going to go ahead and work on the “Screw you” speech.
You’ll notice I didn’t go straight to “WWBOD.” That’s because he’d just be classy and rational, and how fun is that. Besides, he doesn’t truly understand that whole “Momma bear defends family” shtick. That’s powerful stuff, baby.
So will we soon be tying the mattress to the top of the Honda Pilot and crossing the country like the Joads, searching for work in an orange grove? Moving isn’t really an option for us at this point since my mom is really sick and — here’s the real reason — I’ve finally found a school that’s a good fit for the kids (resulting in my one gray hair and at least two ulcers). What’s the deal with that, by the way? When we were kids, you walked down the street to whatever school was the closest. I swear, it was easier deciding when to get married, buy a house, and have post-traumatic, life-sustaining devices removed than it was to figure out where to send the rug rats to eat graham crackers and nap. But I digress. Our current options for keeping the family afloat are: 1) Tenzin flies around the country, doing doctor temp-work, 2) I sell my children’s book(s) and make a million dollars, or 3) this blog becomes wildly popular and starts pulling in thousands of dollars a month (which is highly improbable since I don’t know how blogs become wildly popular or pull in money). I’m banking on number 2.
The upside of this is that Tenzin will have July off, so I’m thinking — for the first time in about 10+ years — road trip! I’m guessing this will look a little like a Doris Day movie, a lot like Chevy Chase’s Vacation, and hopefully not at all like Terminator, with me playing the part of the cyborg and the rest of the family fleeing like frightened humans (although let’s be honest — there are going to be at least bi-daily beatings).
I’ve toyed with the idea of camping the whole time, but it’s become increasingly clear to me that I’m, well, kind of a wuss. I’d love to not pass this on to my kids, and I’ve apologized to Tenzin for my insufficient genetic material, but when it comes down to it, I’ve decided I pretty much don’t like being cold, hot, wet, sticky, sandy, sweaty, dirty, greasy, sore, tired, or inconvenienced in any way for long periods of time.
I figure everything will be fine as long as we can stop for the night every 2 hours (since the kids seem to think that’s a “long trip”), drive on straight roads (since Elfie gets carsick whenever we make more than three consecutive 45 degree turns), and stay at the Westin every few days. Easy peasy.
Tammy Soong is a writer, wife, and mom from Reno, Nevada. She takes an absurd amount of pain medication, but not enough to have actually named her children "Newt" and "Elfie." She spends most days stressing out over clutter, writing stuff for this place, and working on podcasts with her gal pals, the Blogging Betties.
Ok – so here is your road trip – take US 50 straight (and I mean straight – there are some sections of that road that are so straight it is frightening) across Nevada to Ely to see the Lehman Caves which are really cool. Here is a link: http://www.americansouthwest.net/nevada/great_basin/lehman3_l.html
What you do after that, I don’t know. There are no Westins, though – just Best Western, Holiday Inn Express and Ramada.