There are, however, two things that he CAN talk about for hours, days, and, as is the case with a few of his buddies, even exclusively for the duration of a friendship. These two things are movie quotes and Family Guy. Seriously.

Nearly all guys seem to be able to speak, at least for a basic conversation in the language of movie-quote-ese. This may be equivalent to, say, a basic Spanish 101 convo:

“Hola, como estas?”

“Estoy bien, gracias. Y tu?”

“Muy bien, gracias.”

“Es muy fria hoy.”

“Claro que si. Es un dia muy bonito.”

“Donde esta el bano?”

“No se. Donde esta el restaurante?”

“En la calle. Me gustaria comer tacos hoy.”

“Yo me gustaria comer pizza.”

“Ok, mucho gusto.”

“El gusto es mio.”

“Adios!”

“Hasta pronto!”

Some women can speak the language, but these are rare, maybe as rare and elusive as, say, Bigfoot, and they seldom speak fluently. Even then, their level of conversation would be akin to what is above, only they may also be able to throw in an occasional vocabulary word or phrase to pretend to understand and speak the arcane language. The men generally pick up on this quickly, give a small courtesy laugh, and shrug the woman off in order to continue their conversation privately, albeit loudly.

Two women who share common interests may get together and bring their husbands along for double dates. At any given time these two women talk about their kids, the new parks they’ve visited, yoga, a recent movie they’ve seen, shopping, celebrity gossip, the latest tech gadgets, blogging, the housing crisis, politics, the healthcare initiave (which I still don’t understand), or, heck, maybe even existentialism and religious beliefs. Whatever. It could be the world’s most interesting conversation, but the guys’ eyes will, 9 times out of 10, gloss over, and they’ll find themselves swigging their beers wondering how to get out of this miserable double date.

Then, one of them will say, “Hey, did you see such-and-such movie?” Then the other guy will chuckle and reply, “(insert one of a gazillion different movie quotes here).” Then the first guy will laugh and follow up with another movie quote. The conversation usually continues from there, quotes jumping from movie to movie, until Ronny brings in a Family Guy quote. Or, if the guy happens to be Ronny’s perfect match, he’ll do the honors of reciting the first FG bit, which will make my hubby’s little puppy tail wag. In my experience observing Ronny’s “manly” conversational habits, I have observed another pattern. I’d say about 95% of the time the other guy will laugh, nod knowingly, and follow up with another Family Guy quote or situation.

Those who have studied Family Guy and have developed a good grasp of the language can speak for a good while, rehashing and laughing over situations and quoting, word for word, said situations. Then there are those who are completely fluent in the language of Family Guy. Ronny is one of these weirdo freaks who I just can’t relate to interesting and talented people. When you get two or more of them together, it’s like watching a remote African tribe through hidden cameras on the Discovery Channel. They have the uncanny ability to continue this conversation for . . . literally . . . hours, in their own little world, as if no one is watching or listening.  Trust me. I have witnessed this happen, usually to my absolute ennui to the point of my falling asleep and waking up in a puddle of drool, many, many times.

Ronny even has one particular friend with whom he speaks of nothing else. Seriously. I asked him yesterday if they talk about anything else and he said, “we’re just not that kind of friends.” If they text each other, it’s in the FG code. They may text a situation or quote which can be translated to, “Hey, I’m in a golf tournament next week. Want to join me?” This quote would be replied to with another quote which could be loosely translated to: “I’d love to, but my girlfriend planned this stupid daytrip with her friend and her husband. Unfortunately, I have to tag along and play nice. It’s gonna suck. Hopefully the other guy will be able to speak our secret bro-language.”

I’m not joking.

Here’s another example. We had a poker game the other night at our house. It was Ronny, me, and three other guys, one of which was the said FG/MQ-only speaking friend. They sat across from one another, and while we all had normal poker game conversations, these two talked Family Guy and movie quotes to one another exclusively. Seriously, I don’t think a snippet of English passed between the two of them. But they made each other laugh all night long. I’m pretty much inured to it so I tune it out and just note that it’s nice to see Ronny laugh out loud so much. The other guys seem pretty used to it, too, as the game and normal conversation went on for hours.

Occasionally, and I mean very rarely, we’ll come across a guy who, in response to Ronny’s Family Guy or movie quote, will respond with a blank, confused stare and a subtle shaking of the head. Ronny knows immediately that the two of them have absolutely no hope for any sort of conversation or friendship. It’s his way of sniffing the other dog’s butt. If there’s no mutual interest, he’ll walk away without a second thought. That’s just how it is. And at that very moment, no matter how good of a time I may be having, and no matter how excited I am to be out with another couple, I know in my heart that we will never have another double date with this couple again. It’s a sad, sad realization.

This post took an entirely different turn than I had planned. That said, my next post will hopefully go more in line with my original intent.

That’s one of the cool things about writing. You may or may not know what you want to write about, but then what actually comes out can surprise you completely.

Until next time…

So I asked her what the heck was going on. Apparently this gal leaves all of her kids at home. I didn’t ask how many, but for some reason I assume she has six. She just leaves them at home with the speaker phone on in the kitchen and she listens to them all…day…long while she does nails and waxing. They do their homework, they watch TV, they talk to each other, and occasionally they make her laugh or ask her a question.

I assume she has unlimited minutes.

The other thing I don’t get is this. What’s the point of the hand models and the posters in the little nail salons? I assume that they’re there so you can see just how beautiful your hands could be with a little manicurely love. But look at this. Seriously, what gives?

Are they trying to say that they can put colorful claws on corpses? Because a few of those hands look like they’ve come from chilly cadavers that have been hit by cars. And what’s with the hook nails? I don’t understand this phenomena, but what I do know is that nearly every salon I ever go to has the same ridiculous display. And yes, I do in fact only go to the cheap little Asian “salons”. I can’t bear the thought of paying $40 for a manicure. Plus, as you can see in the photo above, this place also sells Cheetos and Doritos.

But here’s what really made me laugh. They always have these cheesy, soft-focus posters with “beautiful” long fingernails on 80s-esque hand models. It’s usually hands gently holding a long-stemmed rose as red as the shellac on the inch-long fingernails, or sometimes it’s long “beautiful” hands lying across a piano. This one that I saw yesterday, though, REALLY took the cake. I mean, fo’ rizzle?

First of all, I would say that these hands look pretty rubbery and non-functional, but say you’re in a situation where you actually need to use your machine gun. Do you think that you’d really have the time to get that gat situated in your beautiful hands? How would you get those talons into the little hole to pull the trigger? And what happens if you run out of bullets and need to re-load? I assume the nails are strong enough that they won’t break, but they just seem so inconvenient. And if you’re going to be shooting a gun like that, wouldn’t you at least want a camouflage pattern on the nails? I’d be willing to bet that’s a possibility.

Every day I look at Maysen and I fall more deeply into love with her. She’s amazing. She melts my heart. And I seriously can’t imagine that I could ever have enough love for another child. How could I ever love anyone as much as I love her? It doesn’t even seem possible.

Before May I was always, in my opinion, a little incapable of really loving someone. Of course I love my husband, of course I love my parents and my brother, but it’s different. It’s not a heartwrenching love that leaves me feeling helpless like it is with her.

Just in the last few days she has learned something really sweet. Here’s our newest dialogue:

Me: “You know what?”

May: “I wuv you!”

Me: “I love you, too!”

May: “I wuv you, too, more!”

Sigh.

Nana taught her the “more” part. Does she really know what she’s saying, or does she just know that she’ll just get a big warm hug and kiss from me when she says it?

My beautiful girl. Such an angel...when she feels like it.

Usually bedtime consists of a few stories followed by my glorious singing which leads to one very sleepy kid who sweetly rests her head on my shoulder and occasionally tells me when she’s ready to go to sleep.

I only brought four books on this trip: Olivia, Pat the Bunny, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and Hug. We’ve read Hug over and over and over and over and we’ve read Olivia nearly as much. Pat the Bunny has only been cracked once, and I almost forgot that we brought The VHC. Tonight, we started Hug, but the stinker wouldn’t sit still. Instead, she insisted on ripping down the dishtowel I have duct taped over the window curtains, which made me mad because I’m neurotic about having people being able to see in my windows at night. She thought it was hilarious but I was pissed. Then she just wanted to jump on the bed and play “tap” on my stomach. Ever been to Gymboree? If you have, you’ll know the tapping game. But it’s not a good game to play on a bloated pregnant belly. Then, even though I explained to her that Daddy wasn’t in the RV, that he was in the hot tub (yes, we’re staying at an “RV Resort” tonight), she insisted on ripping open the curtains and searching for him, knocking who-knows-what over as she ran through the 18 (or so) square feet in which we’ve been living for the last week or so. I pick her up and explain that it’s time for bed, and she screams, “Otay fiiiine!” which, as I’ve explained before, means “no!” So I turn off the light and try to sing her favorite songs and she screams and kicks and squirms. The battle continued for probably about 45 minutes before I finally just let her turn on the damned iPad.

This child is a technology addict and I have no idea what to do about it. When Ronny came back I told him that was it, I give up. That’s when he said it. “You’re getting beat by a one-year-old.”

“At least I’m trying,” I said.

“Well, I almost had her to sleep earlier.”

“Well, la-dee-friggin’-da. Now she’s up and I’m over it.”

So I made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and let the wild child loose. Now, after I’ve gone way past caring about getting her to bed at a reasonable hour, she’s up front lying on the couch with Daddy, watching a Baby Einstein DVD. Occasionally I hear a tiny yawn or a small tidbit of conversation between the two of them. It’s nice to hear, and I finally get a moment of silence.

Until tomorrow…

1/6/12

Wouldn’t you know it? It’s day 6 of NaBloPoMo and I’m already unable to make a blog post. I realize that it’s already going to be pretty challenging to post every day while I’m on the road. I can post from my handy dandy iPhone, as long as I have 3G, but our first campsite, Leo Carrillo State Park, has no phone or internet, not even 3G. Normally it would be my own laziness to prevent me from posting, but alas, today the forces are against me.

I’ll post this, though, the first chance I have access to wi-fi. Or, today I took a few pics to share, so I’ll at least get those up.

Anyways, so we’re on the road again. Last time it was a 3 month journey full of lots and lots of camper problems. It’s bound to happen, I suppose, when your RV is 25 years old. Yes, it’s a 1985 Coachmen. Since the trip our Coachie has been fixed up a little. And when I say a little, I really mean a LOT. She’s had an entire facelift. And engine lift. She’s had more money put into her than she’s worth.

The last time we were on a trip in this baby we had a full-grown Lab with us. A dog really brings a whole sense of joy to a road trip. He spent the majority of the time stretched across my lap, slobbering on my legs, and keeping me warm…even across Texas where the temperature actually topped 115.

This time we have a whole new source of joy. Kodi died a year and a half ago, but this time we have Maysen with us. I can’t say she loves the ride as much as Kodi did, but it’s great to look back at her strapped into the captain’s chair, requesting her favorite “la-la”, and asking the ocean where it is. There are so many sources of joy to be tapped into on a road trip. Perhaps I’ll go into it a little more tomorrow, but for now, I need to cozy under my covers. It’s friggin’ cold here tonight.

1/7/12

I’m sitting in a Wal-Mart parking lot with a dead battery. Maysen is strapped into her car seat using the last drop of my battery to watch home movies on the iPhone. She’s actually watching “cookie time” over and over again because it seems to be her favorite. We’re in Arroyo Grande, it’s dark, and we’re yet to get to our camp site. The problem with doing a trip like this in January, besides the fact that it gets very, very chilly at night, is that the day ends right around 5:30pm, well before we’re settled in camp and ready for the sun to go down. Last night was so cold, and I was up all night. Miraculously, May slept the whole night through. (I gotta get me some of those fleece jammies with the feet in them!) All we’ve really done is hung out today. Nothing spectacular. We were going to check out the tidepools at Leo Carrillo, but Ronny didn’t see how to maneuver the camper…

1/8/12

…It’s several hours later. I think I wrote that around 7pm and it’s now 12:28 am.

What a friggin’ hassle! So, remember I said that I was sitting there with a dead battery? Well, after our battery charger thing wouldn’t work we flagged down a guy in a pickup for a jump. No dice. I called AAA. They said they’d have a guy to me within 45 minutes. Then Ronny actually went in to Wal-Mart and bought a brand new battery. Still no dice, so we figured it must not be the battery. Ronny’s thinking it’s the starter so he’s under the camper banging on stuff, getting all greasy and sweaty, and asking me to turn the key every now and then. He started to get so frustrated, and suddenly memories of our last RV trip came back to me. Oh, crappy crap. Here we go again with Mr. Grumpy McGrumperton.

After an hour and 15 minutes, I called AAA back to ask what the heck was going on. Apparently the guy who was supposed to come help us got off of work and forgot to tell the other guy, so the other guy just got the call. We had planned to take a cab to the Hampton Inn and have my parents come and pick us up tomorrow, and we were about to just leave the camper there for good.

But suddenly, just as the AAA guy FINALLY showed up, TWO HOURS into this whole ordeal, it dawned on Ronny that I might not have put the camper in Park correctly. Bingo. He pulled it into gear then back into park and the beast lit up like a charm. What a sense of relief, of course, but also so frustrating to think it was something so simple.

Apparently, because this RV was born in 1985, it’s got loose gears. So you can’t simply put it in Park like you would with any other automatic transmission. Evidently you have to actually jam it into park. Nobody ever told me this and there’s no sign indicating anything about this little idiosyncrasy. Luckily the batteries on the iPad lasted through the whole ordeal and kept Maysie busy busy busy for the entire two hours.

We finally pulled into the Oceano Campgrounds in Pismo Beach around 10:00pm. Maysie and I built a fort, read the Hug book that she’s obsessed with right now, and played blocks until I rocked her and sang her “la-la” before she finally went down about 11:00. So now, an hour and a half later, after having sat by the fire with hubby, finally relaxing, it’s time for Mommy to go to bed. Still no internet, so still no posts, but at least I’m here, right?

1/8/12

Wow. What a great day it was today. After last night’s near debacle today came with a renewed sense of hope and excitement for the day. We had a nice cuddly morning with Maysie, then we got up, had a light breakfast, fed the most enormous geese I’ve ever seen (I was actually a little afraid of them!) and then we got on our way. I had 3G for a while at the campsite so I was able to find a good spot in Big Sur to head toward. Only about 130 miles north, it seemed like a great destination. I said all I care about is that we get to our destination no later than 4pm. It sucks getting there after dark. The drive up the coast is spectacular, though terribly windy and narrow in spots for the RV. Gorgeous nonetheless. We stopped in Cambria for an awesome seaside picnic. Maysie was thrilled to feed the seagulls the crusts from my sandwich. She kept chasing the birds saying “Hey! Boodie, hey!” and then she’d look at me as it flew away from her, as if she flat out didn’t understand why these birds wouldn’t let her touch them. We hopped back on the road for another hour or two and finally arrived at the Big Sur Campground and Cabins. So much better than we expected. Most of the campsites that allow RV’s are really shitty. More like a parking lot than a campground. This one, however, is perfect. We’re surrounded by trees on a small cliff overlooking a slow and gentle river. The best part? There’s a playground 20 feet from the camper! Maysie’s thrilled with that, Ronny’s thrilled with the nature of it all, and I’m thrilled to have so many happy campers. Ronny grilled up turkey burgers and sausages and boiled a pot of potatoes while I made a beautiful salad with all of the organic veggies we bought at the farmers market in Santa Barbara yesterday.  Maysie had mac-n-cheese, but nibbled quite a few of the potatoes as well. We sat around the fire, alternately listening to music and the gurgling river, and when it came time, I read Maysie her bedtime stories and sang her bedtime song. The best part? As I lay her down in her bed, I kissed her and told her I love her like I do every single night. She looked at me and said, “I wuv you.” Melty, melty heart full of love and joy.

1/9/12

Another amazing day. I was so worried that traveling with Maysen would be really tough. I thought she’d whine and cry about being in her car seat for so long, and I thought she’d be a nightmare in the camper and at the campground. It turns out that she’s the best little camping partner ever. The first thing she said to me this morning from her pack-n-play was “Mommy, cuddle.” How can you beat that? She crawled under the covers with me and we…played with the iPad and watched DVDs. Whatevs. She took her first bath in the camper’s tub; Ronny heated up a big pot of water on the stove and we dumped into the tub. She played with her toys and bubbles and filled the camper with smiles and splashes. All I wanted to do today was go somewhere that we could go for a little hike, so after hitting the playground for a while wed ended up at Andrew Morena State Park where we took a little hiking trail to a picnic area. We all had a good time, but Maysie was almost overwhelmed with fun. The “you can’t catch me” game got her giggling like crazy until, like 12 times, she tripped over a stone and fell. Of course, after skidding on her tummy and filling her hands with dirt and gravel she cried, but she kept saying, “I sawhee” as if she had done something wrong. On the picnic grounds a huge Maple (?) tree had dumped its enormous leaves, and May got to have her first experience hearing the crunching of the leaves. She loved picking up handfuls and letting the breeze take the leaves away. Back at camp, while May slept in her car seat, Ronny chopped a bunch of wood that he had hunted down on the side of the road while I read a few chapters in my book. We built a nice fire, made a nice dinner, and now we’re ready to sit around the campfire for a while. This is one of the best trips we’ve taken, and Maysen fills even the most mundane moments with joy and excitement. You should have seen the way she was fascinated with the grass, the gravel, and the discovery of a ladybug. You should have seen the way she was fascinated with the way Daddy chopped wood and built a fire. You should have seen the way Mommy made a fantastic dinner and all she would eat was peanuts.

1/10/12

It wasn’t easy at all finding a place to stay tonight. Santa Cruz is, from what I know of it, a really cool little city. But it sucks for RV-ers. It took us a couple of hours, but we finally tracked down an RV park where no one answered the phone or the knock on the door. So now we’ve backed in, illegally-ish, to a spot with hookups where it seems that all of the neighbors are semi-permanent residents. Maysie was a gem again today. I think that she really likes to be on the road. She even behaved herself when we went out to eat at a restaurant in Monterey. She even sat in the stroller while I pushed her through a few shops. This trip is really a special time for our little family.  Right now, there’s no internet, and no fire, and dinner’s done. Maysie and Ronny are in the back of the camper watching Toy Story on the DVD player and I’m sitting up front reading a book (and writing this, of course). It’s so hard to explain how fun it is to have Maysen on this trip with us. We did the same trek, pretty much, two years ago when we toured the entire country, but then it was just Ronny and I. It’s an entirely different experience. When it was just the two of us we spent much more time in restaurants and bars. This time we’ve been having picnics and hanging out in the campsite and on playgrounds and little hiking trails. This time we really do stop to smell the flowers…and examine the rocks and kick the leaves and rub our hands in the dirt and marvel at how tall the trees are and let the ladybugs walk down our fingers. This time we point out the things we see around us and talk about what color they are. This time we sing a lot more songs. And Ronny has been in really good spirits this time. I really thought it was going to be an excruciating challenge filled with a lot of tantrums but boy was I wrong. This has been an amazing few days and I’m so glad we did it. I can almost justify paying out the ass for the hundreds of gallons of gas we’re blowing through.