Dawn’s Thoughts

Tuesday January 27, 09

Today we listened to more of The Center of Everything by Laura Morarity. We have all been debating what happens, characters, etc. Always a good sign. I’ve read it before, but haven’t listened on tape until now, and the narrator is very good at character voices. There are things I notice on tape which I don’t notice at all when reading it.

Then we went out, Mom and Dad dropping me off at Reader’s Oasis Books, here in Quartzsite, where I promptly ran into one of the authors from the other day. We got into a discussion about cross-species animal friendships and the best places to see wild animals in your RV. The author was a full time RVer.

I browsed the free books, found the Foxfire section (first four-cornered shelves by the door), and browsed elsewhere in more detail. The magazine section had many back issues. I went looking for the Mother Jones article I wanted to read again — a school in Masschusetts where shock anklets are used, and, where, if I remember correctly, a child may have died some years ago. I don’t remember exactly where in the book No Pity this was mentioned, or if I have confused it somehow, I’ll have to look it up again. I know the first time I read the older article in No Pity, I thought, “Well, of course, someone died. They combined large numbers of physically or emotionally handicapped children, a group likely to have possible seizures — with electric shock, which can produce seizures.” This made me mad.

We all discussed this. Are there people out of control enough that this should happen to them? Yes, in some cases. But I think you need to be careful with this kind of thing, how easy it is to be placed in this type of situation, and have things that aren’t likely to be harmful. The idea that physical punishments, like shock, even mild shock, can be increased, is a frightening thought. I’ll have to look up the article’s details again.

Anyway, this article was not in the bookstore, but Mother Earth News was — tons of back issues. I browsd through three sheles worth, reading as much as I could from the covers and putting them back until I had three on crafts, which I got. Luckily, when I got them home, I discovered they have instructions on pine needle baskets and the rope baskets I making at the moment. A stitch to make them more solid.

Also, while thumbing the Quartzsite Almanac there, I found out that the girl whose picture is in the back of the store, the one whose garden we heard about last time, was the book man’s daughter. I hadn’t connected the names before. I just thought since children seem to be scarce here, that everyone knew who she was. I’ve read the articles in the papers here before, but not with an article about the bookstore just before. And she was a preemie.

She died some years at 8, from a virus in her heart. That’s only the second time I’ve heard of a virus in your heart. (Not counting rhumatic fever).

Mom says this troubles her, the preemie thing, the death. She says she wants to go up and say “I have a child like yours,” because that ’s what folks do at school and elsewhere, trade stories about handicapped kids especially, preemies even if they are normal. But when I ask, she says she won’t, that you can’t do that when the child dies.

She said it’s sad that the girl died, of course, but worse that she was a preemie, because you have to fight so hard to live, and then to have something carry you off afterward, would make the parents so mad.

The other day Dad said he read in the paper on the computer that the man who owns the Tank Farm, in Portola Valley, that he died at fifty. This is sad. I like the tank farm, and I enjoyed the two tours I took up there, with howitsers and grenade launchers and other military equipment. It’s always good for a laugh too, because the people leading tours tell funny stories about the owner, about his son trying to explain the stuff his father owned, driving a tank up to the farm, and ever so often something will come up in the paper about customs stopping him until he explains that the equipment shipped here or there is dummy equipment, disarmed.

I enjoyed the funny stories about this. I know they were planning a museum last time I was there, and I hope they complete it, and not just before I’ve heard it might be the largest military collection. I don’t know if that’s true, but I hope someone takes up the project, because I was excited about the museum. Not only do they tell in tours about tanks etc. but also things to tell you that the equipment isn’t an empty thing in someone’s collection, that people lived and died in most of them, that tanks had to be repainted but the replacements could still see bloodstains inside. I admire that. I admire how a tour can be run that way, because I heard things on those tours that I haven’t heard anywhere else. And that’s a good thing.

(A vendor in Quartzsite has old shop equipment, engines and one large WWII style bomb, over six feet tall. Another vendor has a smaller WWII one, as well. Just goes to show that anything can be seen here….

And that includes Elvis, who is apparently not dead, but only retired and operating the CD booth down by the farming equipment. This actually makes sense.)
In October, a classmate of mine said that another classmate had died, a “have you heard” kind of thing. I said I hadn’t, asked if they had become “stuck” in a seizure. He said no, that she only went to sleep and never woke up. I went home and looked it up. It’s rare for that to happen, but I guess it does. That would have made her my age roughly, one year older. I remember her, very euthasiatic. I remember a birthday party where we went to the movies, and I couldn’t see in the dark, until her dad, a blind man, grabbed hold of me so we could bump into strangers together. I don’t remember in the hallways or lunches specifically, but I know she was around, because most folks I know were around in the same lunch places. And like Mom with the preemie thing, this is something I keep returning too, because they were my age and had a specific place and situation that I can understand.

After we left the bookstore, Mom and I went home for awhile, then around 7 PM we went to see the yodeler down at the QIA, cleared of booths now. The room had about 400 people in it, and we were the youngest of them, except for two girls there. The yodeler was quite good, with a interesting birdlike yodel in some parts, and he could fit yodeling to just about anything, including country, old songs like “Redwing” and even Norwegian songs. He had a funny song about a yodeling cow, “The Norwegian Milking Song” I believe it was called. This made me laugh, because the sound of the cow mooing was very funny. Mom and I agreed that our cat might have liked this, that we hadn’t “tried” him with yodeling. We both thought of our chicken, who sang, and thought what a pity it was that the man didn’t have a song with a chicken.

What was next, of course, was the freerange chicken song, unfortunately not on any CD, but which made us laugh harder, because this really sounded like our chicken. The yodeler could also “play his face” like a trumpet, different from how my friend plays his face — although that would be an interesting band — and even combine the trumpet and yodeler sound.

He had a zither, and that sounded like 3 instruments at once, and had a good story about how he had inherited it from a friend. He said you can’t drive with the zither music on, because it will put you to sleep, so of course we had to buy a CD so we can try it. (The sleeping, not the driving under the influence of zithers).

It was amazing, because 400 people were there — and I know how many spit baths are around here, and there was an absence of old people smell. And, too, when we got up the announcer said that we should put up our folding chairs, and within less than five minutes, the crowd was gone and that floor was so clean of chairs and trash, you could have danced on it.

And they took a collection last night –  some folks got burned out of the motor home — within 3 minutes, so I guessed it right. I didn’t see the fire or hear about it until then. It was nice of folks to donate, especially since the people were from somewhere else, and needed to get home. You’d think of that being done for your own townsfolk, not someone elses. But I guess here is visited by people from so many places, mostly all very friendly, that maybe that’s what they do here. They passed around not a hat, but a tall coffee can of fives, tens and twenty, packed, by the time it could to our row, three from the back. We donated too, because it could be anyone out there. Although reportedly the man was showering and smelled smoke and jumped out with his wife, which was good because the fire burned it in 3 minutes, and they need to clean up the area, BLM says. It’s good we’re out in the boonies, so all the RVs don’t catch fire right next to each other, but your nearest neighbor could be heading toward you at a run and still it would take over 3 minutes for them to get to the RV, I think.

They’re lucky to be alive, and to have people kind enough to raise donations that quickly.

Still…

Isn’t that just the thing to happen while you could hop out of the RV, nervous and half-dressed?

January 26, 09

Today we all went out aiming for the dining room of the QIA (Quartzsite Improvement Association), which has crafts on Mondays and Thursday. Though today they didn’t, because the rock show was ending and even though the dining room was empty, everything was being moved out in all the other rooms, and outside too.

I brought my rope basket stuff, but it wasn’t needed. Then we went to look at the surrey like ours at home, and then at the motor that might go on it, as Mom called Dad this morning. We’ve agreed that we’d all like not to haul the 50 pound bike around without a motor. With a motor it could be used like a regular car. The people who had the surrey also had a penny farthing, one of those old-fashioned bikes that’s almost a unicycle.

A China-made penny farthing.

The motor man said he’d do better selling us the motor when he had a better idea what sort of surrey we have. He and Dad arranged to trade pictures.

Yesterday we went to buy Mom’s book from the crystal glaze man, who was kind enough to make us a great deal, as it was his last day there.

Mom and I went to look at something she wanted, but I went to look for the bookstores instead. I found the barker’s again, which is called the Merchantile. We call it the Barker’s because the vendor calls out like a circus barker, for people to make deals.

Then Mom and I went to Bingo. We did better, playing without help this time, though we didn’t win. It was less panicky this time, especially since I discovered the camera that shows what the balls do, so I can get a head start. They had chili today, instead of candy, only they put the candy out last, so I got that too. The Bingo hall has a sign that says, “Dance at your own risk.”

I would have thought that was assumed.

Also, people have particular words there like “22” that they make a train noise for, or other noises. And then everyone laughs.

It’s like a large fourth grade.

Then I wanted to go to Silly Al’s, as someone was using the senior center’s table, only Mom thought Dad had dinner going, so we went home. Only Dad didn’t need us and we went back to Silly Al’s. The first game went very well for me, and I made some good shots, but the second one sent the cue ball under some folks’ table and Mom had to hunt for it and swear to them that she hadn’t pitched it.

The people surrounding my pool playing should be provided with riot gear.

Then we came home to Dad’s spaghetti and settled in to listen to “The Center of Everything” on tape.

January 25, 09

Went out this morning to show Dad the grinder I want — the one that works. It has the parts mine is missing, which is the 3 tension screws and a vise-shaped piece that distrubates tension evenly. Dad says he might make me the remaining parts.

Went by the hit-and-miss engine folks again. The pipe saw man was still there, despite him saying he was leaving early, and nodded at me to take the two sawed pieces. The calliope man was gone, but I saw later, pulling the piping calliope along around town, just the way it must have once called the children to the circus.

Wandered around the Prospector’s Panorama with Mom. Went to the Sisters Gallery. I love thier oil paintings beause they have such bright nice coloring (and they have a great painting of one of those colored roosters with a multicolored sunsets behind him.

Went and had $1 frozen yogurt.

In search of more rhubarb jam, as Mom has hidden our previous purchase so well that we can’t find it to eat it. Walked past the vendor who has the welded fountains of “found” metal. I’ve seen these before — teakettles and plates or silverware, for windchimes, but these are welded fountains using the same idea, only with clarinets, tubas, spittoons and teaskettles. All pour water out or through themselves.

Got a tour and complete explanation of methods from a vendor who sells pottery quite different from the ordinary. Not only does he have great glaze, looking like fire on one and ocean on another, but things are inlaid in holes, similar to the gourd techniques I’ve seen out here. They are things I hadn’t thought of for gourds or pottery. Like the gourd makers, he used seethrough slabs, but also giant marbles — punching patterns out of leatherhard clay. That means that any light from a candle would light the slabs too. He also had dreamcatcher pottery — but again, so that the image of the dreamcatcher was projected somewhere by the light. Wonderful stuff. The fact that three different parts of the pots would project light (although none of them had candles when I saw them), is a remarkable thing.

I’ve decided when I get hoat me that I should try to spin cut plastic bags on my spindle — that way they’ll spin in larger numbers than the small types I’ve done by accident. They could be woven, knitted or used for basketry.

Also decided I should try  to cast pop tops (thicker so they won’t break), and Chinese coins. That way I could make pop top jewelry etc. or the coin-sword, which is the same technique without waiting to collect pop tops.

About a week ago, I went by a vendor who sold shorter marshmallow shooters out of PVC, and I bought a bent PVC bow. The marshmallow shooter I’ve seen before — it’s like my PVC pop gun, but the bow was new. It came with two dowel arrows, with foam on one end and no feathers on the other. An interesting thing. Went down to talk to the vendor who sold horsehair pottery — blackened with horsehair, this time, and scarfed leatherhard, of all things. He observed my bow — lots of people had been observing it — Probably thought I was nuts — and asked what I was going to shoot.

“targets,” I said.

Finally I admitted to him that I did actually have a proper bow at home.

“Oh, that’s good,” he said, “I can respect that.”

He wanted to see how it shot, but there weren’t any ravines, and certainly too many people to be target shooting.

But I like the PVC bow. I took it out in the weeds by the wash and shot it into the trees, so there’d be drag.

Nothing like being out with your tea and getting a foam arrow through your hat.

The bow shoots a bit wild and has almost too much “spring” to it, but it is, oddly, tight enough to actually shoot something a little ways. I’ll have to try at home as well. The horsehair pottery vendor says he’s a plumber and the PVC I’ll want is called Schedule 80. It looks like 1/2 inch, but he says Schedule 80 will be good enough to hold the bend of the bow.

Visited with the $1 hamburger lady, who serves them for $1 only after 4 PM, often to great lines of vendors and visitors, who sometimes buy them a dozen at a time. They’re ground well and with grilled onions. That’s all. But they’re great.

She had a T-shirt that said “I support Jesus,” which reminded me of the one the woman at the U-haul had. That one said something about the right to be arms and free speech, and if you take away one, the other goes too.

Anyway, the hamburger lady found a large $100 bill taped to her sign, which turned out to be a tract, along the line of “hey, hey, we’re all gonna die.”

Literally. The thing actually quoted song lyrics,

We studied it in a huddle for some time, as it also contained a riddle: how many people are in this bill? I couldn’t find any, though it’s the type of thing I need to enlarge. That way any people hidden in trees etc. could be found.

The vendor seems nice. I told her I liked her sign, which read:

This food is made with love and patience. It is not McDonald’s.

She said, yes, that she’s hoping people will see the handwriting on the wall, literally, as it’s handwritten, and have manners, but some haven’t learned them.

“What will they say when they have to account for it? ‘I haven’t learned any’?”

Went back later, when my feet hurt and got fried mushrooms and chocolate malts from her booth.

Now I’m home and the wind has kicked up again. Earlier, someone was flying a kite over the hit-and-miss engines, and we were betting that it would come down and be tangled in the flywheels. Wouldn’t that be a chore to fix? By now, it’s come down, snapped off, or become tangled.

January 24, 09

Today we wandered around:

checked on grinder with Mom to see what connections I’m missing.

Went by the Uhaul place — a place with a great wide porch and rooms of good junk. Found a book by Alger — except Edwin (?) Alger, not Horatio, although the book looked the same era and rags-to-riches. I think it was called Phil Hardy’s Rise or something like that. From the Sonoma State Home — the book was published around 1924, and had library dates from 1944-1949. Interesting, because I didn’t know the folks at Sonoma State would have had a library with things like that. I got a Good Old Days Fun book –
Had recollections of flying jennies, tops, can hockey pucks. Interesting things to try and build.

We went back to the laundrymat — not to do laundry, that was the other day, but for me to thumb their book shelves. Probably got tired of folks leaving books in the laundry anyway, so the room is lined with them, and they are $1.50 or 2 for 1 if trading. Best Laundry I’ve been in. You could read your book there and not have to worry about it. Laundrymat also has a small yard sale out back, as everyone here seems to. I suppose they take in discarded vendor items, for the woman said there was an attic full that they haven’t hauled down yet.

hit and miss engine show — several new things to run off them this year. A circus calliope pipe organ, which played beautifully from a player paper, tugging keys downward. It had a two song reel that had been made new for it, including the traditional “circus” tune, and the one pipe that was missing cost $2200 to replace. It had a lot of pipes. Painted bright red with brass looking pipes. A woman did a jig to the pipes as soon as they began.

A barrel butter churn attached to the hit-and-miss — flipped the barrel clean over and could churn something like 48 gallons of milk.

A hit-and-miss engine also powered a table saw. For all the pictures of belt-driven shops, I’ve never seen one outside of the railroad machine shop. The man was sawing bits of wood to make puzzles  — the kind with angles where you have to know which way to slide them.

A pipe sawer — the engine powered by steam. A hacksaw sawed the pipe very straight, and the pipe kept from rolling by a trough. Thinking of my hoop rolling, I asked the man what he was going to do with the slugs that were sawed. He said “nothing” and allowd me to have the finished one. If I could weld, I’d make horseshoes game, ring toss, or welded chairs with the rings. I went to Herb’s Hardware, which had a great selection of files, more than I’ve seen before, and they made sure that I got a metal file. I sanded off the burrs at home and tried the ring out with my stick, but it seems too thin to stand upright long enough to roll.

On Friday we went to the Parker Library. Had displays and artifacts from Poston Internment Camp. Japanese Camps apparently had newsletter that look similar to Okie newsletter. It would be interesting to do a project on the newsletters between the two camps, probably both with gossip and recipes. One artifact was interesting – a helicopter flyer. The “twist” for the propeller was made of baling wire twisted around itself, with a metal propeller and a wooden stopper at the end ( to keep it from flying off). I enjoyed looking at that. Bought a book on African divination …has “dice” made of anything, but traditionally of knuckle bones, which is what I’ve heard jacks originally were. It mentioned that blowing on dice makes your spirit go into them… I wonder if Reno gamblers know that…

Interesting to build. I’ve thought about getting knuckle bones from the hide and bone people here for jacks, but divination pieces is interesting too.

The man with the pipe saw and the man who ran his cart by hit-and-miss engine both did the Tulare Ag show. Good to know, as we are there every year when possible.

Came home to “flag Ernie in,” though we ended up meeting him down by the road, and went to go get prime rib, but sold out — went to Sweet Darlene’s. Seated ourselve amid unbused tables. Had a very tired-looking waitress.

1 hour 30 minutes wait total — 30 minutes until order, 1 hour without order

Ernie ate a cinamon roll and bought a whole pie, which we then all stared at throughout our time there, and debated eating. Dad kept telling Mom to calm down, which is remarkable, as there was no food to be seen unless we all started grabbing at discarded leftovers.

Amused ourselves by building creamer towers until they fell over. Mom and I did, at least, though Dad commented “Children…” and Ernie had nothing to build with.

Then turned creamer bowls upside down (which looked obscene), then stacked creamers on this, seeing “if mine can be taller than yours” (which looked obscener).

Borrowed a book from sale shelves to read while waiting

Thought about getting mashed potatoes for Ernie to sculpt…except, of course, for the fact that we’d have to wait for them…

Rather a shame, as Ernie is well known for his mashed potato sculpting.

Mom talked about the chess set in the shop…went in to see that and to see if they had cards while waiting, but soon Ernie decided we should go.

Hadn’t had anything except water and tea. But we didn’t have to pay for anything either.

Returned home to campfire, pickle loaf (or corn beef) sandwiches, chips and soda.

Spent some time with dogs and Ernie by the campfire. Walter consistently presented his better half of himself for most of the picture, than turned around just before it was snapped,

Ate pie

Ernie left

January 20, 09

This morning we stayed in so that we could listen to Obama get elected. Listen to is the right word, as we could only get KQED on the computer with audio, and later, occansional still-pictures or video feed. This meant we huddled around the computer to listen. It was rather like listening to a traditional election on radio, a la the 1930’s, and better than modern, because narrator commentary was kept to a minimum. “Now so-and-so has just shaken hands with…” Later on, of course, the narrators rehashed the whole election, but at least I got to listen to the whole thing without having to listen to interpretations of it as well. I liked it.

We did that until a little after 12 noon or so (they were a little late signing in Obama by 4 minutes or so, I think, because they announced the time as 12:04 and Dad said he must be sworn in by noon, which I didn’t know). When we did get video, it was only occasional and often the two didn’t match, so we had a picture of one person waving as they were just getting up to speak on our radio feed. But it worked well anyway.

Then Mom and I went out to the other craft store here, in an actual building and found many craft books we liked, and Mom got 2 of them, a Victorian beading book and a proper Shrink Art book for jewelry that I must try at home. Also, when I get home, I must do the old-fashioned foil art — but I’ve decided that if I print out transperiancies of my colored design on the computer and put foil in back, I won’t have to deal with the painted glass my old book advises. Also, I’ve decided that I can make the “+ shaped” pop top necklaces, if I glue them together, rather than tying them, as that doesn’t work. I can dangle them on a string.

Then we went out to the section we haven’t done — where we ate free fried curds, and then Dad called us — right back there. (Have I mentioned that the General Store sells fresh fried chicken gizzards and livers? We got some the other day. Quite good. And they have good olive loaf, but also pickle, and pepper loaf too). I’ve seen 4 of those cast iron presses today like the one I wanted to buy earlier — and I was lucky I didn’t. One today had the same circle (which I thought was a sprout), but also an original label — it’s a sausage stuffer. That means it would probably kill you to make wine out of it. The cast iron presses with a spout like those in a fountain might be fruit presses, but they look similar to these sausage stuffers as well. I’m glad for the wooden press I have at home because I don’t think anyone would have used it as a sausage press because I don’t think it could be cleaned well enough.

That particular vendor also had wagon wheels and wagon wheel rims (which I was thinking of buying for my hoop-and-stick), and a jug beer bottle for $10.

I could do that jug for $4 — and did, last month. I got to drink the beer out of it too.

Got some knitting and spinning magazines from a vendor lady who also had a stash of yarn in the corner. Dyed it herself with different colored onion skins and Koolaid, which she said will not wash out so long as no sugar is added. It was the finest spun yarn I’ve seen, even at the fair. She did carry a wheel in the RV, but said she didn’t give lessons and could only show me the basics on it. Worth asking about though.

Found some old dusty black purses just like mine — got three of them. One was missing a strap, so the man threw in a free belt with it. We may or may not use the belt — depending on how it fits the purse. Certainly long enough though.

Went to Silly Al’s pizza for a meatlover’s pizza and beer. You had to scout out tables and grab them as people left. Mom staked out one table, but soon enough, a man waved us over because he and another person were leaving. They said we were welcome to the leftover pitcher of beer, but we declined it. The place was packed as usual, though I’ve heard they close in the summer and make enough during snowbird season to keep going. I found the pool tables in back and we played a game for 50 cents. I like the fact that I can somewhat hit which ball I want now, and Mom says here’s a sport that doesn’t hurt her hands, so maybe we’ll have to take up pool.

One of my finds today was a pidgen-English novelty item called a Fart Bag. The instructions said something like:

Place the bag near object

Air balloon inside will swell

Smell of fart will happen

Eating is prohibited.

Well, naturally. They don’t want you to eat the fart bag, but the other way round is neat too…

“No, no, Grandma! Drop the apple. A fart bag was just released under your chair!”

And if you did eat it, I imagine you’d have a hell of a time with the whole “air balloon swelling” thing in your stomach.

Then you’d have doctors prodding at your bouncing belly, wondering just what you meant about the fart bag.

I think I might purchase some as gifts. 25 cents isn’t that bad, each, and might have been for the whole box…It’d make a great gift with the penis pendant, and might even rival the Rat Bastard Root Beer and Spotted Dick I send one year….

Yes. With a little card….”Thinking of you…”

MMmm…Rat Bastard Root Beer…

Then I came as it was getting dark…no dramatic sunsets today, and worked on my foil pictures from the craft store. They must be old, because I can’t get them to carve correctly. I’ve started sketching around the pattern, rather than following the lines.

Watched the new X-Files movies and went to bed.
‘

February 19, 2009

Since I’ve forgotten what I did in detail this Saturday and Sunday, I’ll fill them in later.

We listened to KBUX radio, local radio out here, so good that we kept it going until at least 3 AM this morning. I turned it off then because I couldn’t sleep for listening in. They have mainly Oldies, at least when I listened, though they had jazzy music later on, and one apparent sign-off (!) by the lady who owns the station. But they didn’t sign off and kept going. I’ve heard that it plays country, oldies and gospel, among others I’m sure.

Mom woke us up at 7 AM, when it was half light, with great dark clouds and a bright sliced moon, to look at the sun come up. The parts of the sunrise that weren’t bright red, burnt colored or streaked with gray-and-red, were so obviously dark charcoal lines that it looked as though somebody had put brush strokes on incorrectly. As if it was a mistake. I said we should cornmeal, for a ritual like seeing the sun come up, but the little I know about it is that it has something like throwing salt over your shoulders or in front, except with cornmeal. Maybe blessing the gods or something. I don’t remember.

We stayed out until it had warmed up enough to quite literally vaporize most of the clouds, then we went back in and Mom and Dad left. I stayed in, because I was tired for m little sleep. I did foot exercises and lay in bed reading The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule, which I got yesterday from one of book vendors. Quite good so far…I like the pace, suspence and early forensics in it. It’s interesting someone could stay alive so long that the execution methods would change around them.

At 12 noon, Mom called to have me warm over the spaghetti, which we ate, and then drove to the senior center for Bingo. I’ve heard they have a Wii somewhere, but saw no sign of it at all, only women in the Bingo room, and slouch-capped husbands with laptops in the other, along with the pool table and board games.

I thought for Bingo, maybe we’d only get three games for our money, but no, we got at least twelve or thirteen, all of which the announcer read off at such a speed that we had to race madly to keep up at all. The calmer regulars, on the other hand, two of which were assigned to help us, went through their cards without hurrying a bit, and still managed to keep up. The folks who helped us were quite kind with their tips. Everyone seemed to know the announcer very well and joked with him as he read off numbers.

The bingo was also not regular bingo, but different patterns each time, stamped with a marker. The advantage to this was that the markers don’t move like the poker chip ones I played with in school. The games with only two rows were best, because then I had a bit of a breather while the useless numbers rolled by.
We weren’t finished until 3 PM. I went into the back room to use the pool table. Mom gave a woman a ride home and had a tour of her 1970’s Airstream. I played pool by myself and strangely had some luck in that many of the balls actually went where I was aiming, or hit what I wanted, sometimes in interesting ways, and I only made the cue ball spring under chairs and tables about four times.

“And there it is!” I said the first time.

One man studied me and the game and then gave tips on holding the stick down low by the ball. This helped a bit, but sometimes it’s the down-low that makes the ball leap frog. In fact, rather like my bowling, one ball leapfrogged over another and knocked the one beyond into the pocket.

I enjoyd it. I played four games by myself and one with Mom, and then the center closed and we got water from the machines by there, instead of going to the General Store for the machines. We fill our water bottles by the five gallon and that’s where our drinking water comes from when we’re out here.

All in all, it was an excellent, if tiring day, at the senior center and I want to return there to play more pool.

Mom and I had pie from the Apple Pie Lady, met Dad walking down there, and left him to take the car over to the $1 burger shop, where Mom got burgers and stringy fries. Very good. Dad must have walked home pretty fast. Had dinner outside under the trees, long enough to see the sunset, then went inside as the Internet was on.

(The other day, I went out and could what I think might be Venus (from talking to an author at Readers’ Oasis), it looks like an extremely large bright star, that doesn’t move at all for me. But I could also see maybe 30 stars, some of all arranged in what might have been a constellation. That was really cool. Never seen 30 stars together before. I’m lucky enough to see six. I’ll have to sit my chair out some night to watch them).

Friday, January 17, 09
Today we went to:
get water, and went to the local fabric store, which is a tailor. It has fabric that I hadn’t seen before, some of it intricant. Different people and slightly different stuff this time, though. Makes me worry a bit about the fate of their good fabric store. We also went to the local craft store, which is now hosting wire wrapping classes, and thumbed through their books.

We went to the metal detector store to look at the White XLT detectors. I bought the manual for the XLT so I can read about it.

Reader’s Oasis bookstore (referred to by us as the Naked Man’s) was fun as usual. The owner has things I’ve only seen inside Local History rooms, like the county histories from the 1800’s. Everything’s wrapped up to keep off the dust, which covers everything in the vendors outside, but also inside, because Reader’s Oasis has some cracks in it. Examined the Western and Native American sections and War sections. Saw a newer Quartzsite DVD there as well.

Went outside to talk to the poor author’s doing promotions there, at least of one of which had no clue the owner was a nudist, and thought they would all be at the Main Event. It was good to see authors there, and I talked to most of them. One had cowboy stories about catching wild horses, by hand, and by airplane. Another talked with me about self-publishing, how its’ done and that the best part was talking with people.

Mom bought some craft books and hollered, “Who do I pay?”

“Just look for the naked guy,” the Naked Man hollered back, so she paid him.

Some folks obviously hadn’t read the signs or newspaper articles about nudism in the store; several were walking out rather upset. That said, great books.

At Rice Ranch, I scrounged through “dead folks’ stuff,” as the vendor put it — 1800’s deeds, 1940’s air mail, scrap books about the army, TV stars of the 1940’s and medical news articles.Stuff I haven’t seen outside of an archive, and should be there, instead of thrown in chests. Finally settled on a Election Literacy certificate, a rhyme about a pulley in a shop, and a druggist’s reciept from the 1800’s that listed old drugs. Higher prices, but great stuff. And I only went through one chest there.

“Where do you get this stuff?” I asked.

“Dead folks,” replied the vendor. He was dressed in overalls.

“Your dead folks’ stuff made my day,” said another shopper.

Great stacks of scythes lay in one section. Mom found a two-pedaled upright, painted-on-scroll child’s piano, but it need extensive work as everything was buckled.

Vendor shops here are interesting. Men strum guitars while waiting for customers, people play old country music in some shops and sell bluegrass, gospel, rock and roll, and blues. Sometimes you can hear someone singing something old when there’s not even any music playing. Right out in public, and just like how people gather to talk here, nobody moves far away from them, like they would at home.
craft store

metal detector store

Reader’s Oasis Books and Author talks

I scrounged in “dead folks’ things” to find deeds, invoices, scrap books etc.

Other Rice Ranch vendors.

Friday January 16, 09

We went to the Desert Rat Cafe for breakfast. Dad had a burrito, Mom had biscuits and gravy, and I had a bowl of their excellent oatmeal. They have the thick Scottish oats, with brown and raisins all boiled together. It’s great. The restaurant is in a white tent, or rather two connected, with outdoor carpet to cover the rocks, and pole heaters if it gets too cold.

While eating my oatmeal, I zoned out several times, at least more than three. Mom asked what I had to eat yesterday, and I listed our breakfast, the grapefruit, and the salsa and chips. That means I had no protein for 24 hours. Apparently, that’s too long. Mom got just the ham for a ham sandwich — it was really tasty — and I ate that, and then i felt much better and wider awake.

After that, I explored booths. We saw a neat red  1940’s Crosley pickup, that was small but quite roomy. I wondered if it was the same Crosley that made phonographs.

There’s a tent revival coming near us. They’re ad says “Y’all come!” but it looks as though they will have quite a small tent. The Baptist tent here provides the only free water and a place to sit among the vendors. I think they’ll have another sort of tent for the revivial, though. If they fit all the revival into a vendor tent, somebody would get squashed.

We looked at several things, which I forget for the moment.

Thursday January 15, 09

Today I spent a day at home, while Mom and Dad explored the nearby RV show. Intending to work on my rope backpack until my hands hurt, I found that they didn’t and I reworked all of it until about 1 PM, when I began job searching. I job hunted until about 4 PM.

My rope basket needed reworking because the black crochet thread looks particularly bad tied up and showing all over (as I haven’t figured out how to “pattern” it like I can when I simply loop it over each coil). Since I was sewing through the coils instead, the thread appeared everwhere. I also had the pink innards of the actual rope showing in the beginning of the coil, which I didn’t like. Ripped all threads out and redid everything with waxed sinew from the hide-and-bone folks here at Quartzsite. Looks much better.

I didn’t get hungry at lunch, but had a grapefruit around 3 PM or so. Mom and Dad returned soon after and we had salsa and chips for dinner. We had to go to the General Store to fetch the salsa (and I hoped, guacamole, but nothing but hard avacados, which we bought). This General Store has ground patty sausage and links as well, that they make themselves. We go through just for the meat alone, but everything else is good as well.

I was the chip runner there, because Mom had this chip, but wanted that one, and I wanted another, so by a series of misunderstandings and cravings, I hopped among several lines of folks to return this or that chips. The chip aisle, incidentally, is pretty well spread out. I found one section of it that contained only corn and cheese chips. Mom found the other (entirely seperate) section when we were in line. Thus, the line hopping.

The lines, by the way, have gotten consistantly longer, because the first wave of retired RVers have arrived, all of them lined up along the highway, raising clouds of dust, in desperate searches for camping spots. [Some of them have left in the next couple days, however]. At dusk you can go out and see a dust glow just below the peak of the mountain that would be quite pretty, if it weren’t for the dust between your teeth.

It reminds you kind of the Dust Bowl, with tent cities springing up everywhere overnight, and hordes of folks along the highway. Except now there are RVs, and people are coming here largely to spend money, rather than hunt up jobs. It also fits because you can sit in any of the restaurants along here and count the folks in plaid shirts.

While Mom and Dad were out, at dusk, folks came looking for Dad, to talk about the Internet dish.

“It makes a nice blue glow to find the motor home at night,” I replied.

“Does it get Internet?” they asked.

“Oh, yes, and it goes up and down too, and can be adjusted, except if there are trees.”

That ended my discussion of the dish, though I said if they cared to come back, Dad could answer dish questions better.

They came from the Mojave Desert. (This is also the Mohave, but for some strange reason the spelling’s changed over here). Before that, they lived in the desert side of Oregon. I like Oregon. We discussed that my aunt and uncle live in Landers, and they wanted to know if they had been through the recent Landers earthquake. I said they had. From that we went on to discuss the Loma Prieta earthquake and where we were, and what had happened in it. They hadn’t felt that, but had felt the Landers quake.

“Were you born in California?” they asked.

“Oh, yes.”

“Then you’re a prune picker.”

“Yes,” I said, smiling. Then I explained about Mom and Dad being from Bakersfield, though that was all I said. In fact, I’d been reading about “prune pickers” a few months ago in the book I got from Bakersfield history museum. It dealt with Arvin Camp Okies and listed “prune pickers” as the California-born children of Okies.

That was interesting, because I’ve never heard “You dumb prune picker,” as often as “you dumb Okie,” thrown about when someone is sloppy, dressed odd, etc. That interests me.

I wonder if the term is now applied to California-born people in general?

Anyway, that was neat as I hadn’t mentioned Okies, Bakersfield, or the Dust Bowl as topics.

January 14, 2008:

Today we arrived in Quartzite at noon, enough time to explore parts of the flea market capitol – in this case, the Main Event. I found a grain mill I’m debating about.

It was the day for strange things. In the Indonesian tent, which has metal artifact-looking goods from all over, Mom found “Roman eyes” – black beads with white figure-eight eyes, designed to keep off the evil eye. We were asking for a friend, who requested curse-lifting stuff or techniques. I thought of another friend, who once found intriguingly-shaped stone pendants at a metaphysical shop. “Ooh, how nice!” she exclaimed repeatedly. “Look, how smooth! Nice to hold!”

It wasn’t until she was informed that they were actually small carved penises that she dropped the idea of one for a necklace.

I thought of this, and sure enough several appeared – but of many varieties. For those who want to be selective in their stone penis buying trips, there are penises in different colors, ones with etched faces, larger-than-life, and medium sized with Chinese dragon jaws.

Noting this for the future, I went on with Mom. In the discount food store – largely cans in large cardboard boxes, I discovered boxes of stuff to stick up your wazoo.

That should cost more than 65 cents, don’t you think?

Somehow getting wazoo stuff from a cardboard box with crackers and dented cans just doesn’t sit well with me.

The next place we stopped was another market, but unfortunately had a bubble machine that made it smell awful. Mom dashed in and got 3 Cracker Jacks for a dollar, and we sat outside to eat them. Outside had mannequin backsides-and legs-for sale – I suppose to come in handy with the large penises), and advertised a 1905 shrunken head. I did want to see the shrunken head.

“You should get the larger than life penises,” Mom said, chewing. “Actually useful.”

“Sure,” I said, “But going into the post office to get it weighed could be a problem.” We already had an issue trying to mail root beer…”BEER!” the postal people cried. I can just imagine the effort it would take if you tried to mail a…

“Yes,” Mom said. “’What’s the problem? I’m just here mailing my petrified penis.’” This cracked us up for some time.

We went into a jewelry shop and I explored their craft books. I phoned my friend.

“Are you alone?” I asked.

“Yeah. I’m at work.”

“Are you on speaker phone?” (I can just imagine trying to explain a penis purchasing gift to your clients. That would go over well.)

“No.”

“I’m in the Land of Petrified Penis Pendants,” I said. I had to repeat this. “I wanted to make sure you wanted a penis for Christmas.”

I explained the various types of penises available, and we settled on one with an etched face. I plan to pick it up later.

In the middle of all this of course we were also going in and out of other stores, but these were the ones that had the most interesting stuff.

Then we got Dad and went to the Apple Pie people, who have great homemade apple pie with homemade caramel sauce. We shared a table with some folks from Santa Cruz, of all places, and had a good discussion. After they named several interesting scrounging sites, I mentioned my metal detector and the trouble I’ve been having with it chirping all the time. They not only recommend tools (a grabber and push-button, icon and depth dectectors) and detector that might work for me, but offered to let me try it out. That sounds great. It might work better to go out with somebody first to try detectors. I still have the card for the local detector society at home, but so far their meetings are at night when I don’t have chances to go down there. It’s amazing the number of things in other states you can find about the Bay Area, even Bay Area-related videos.

(Dad wanted to see the penises too, but didn’t want me to come with him out of embarrassment, I suppose. He found the raccoon penises, which I missed entirely. Earlier, I found these (of course) and scapula, veterabrae and other bone parts at the hide-and-bone shop. “You’ve been here before,” commented the owner, as Mom and I rushed about, looking for raccoon penis bones, and comparing the different veterabrae. The buffalo veterbrae was very interesting because it appeared to have two extra “wings” (I’ve forgotten the osteology term at the moment). I bought some sinew for my baskets.

There are two farm and old machine shops here. It’s great to see old tractors, stoves, wagon wheel hoops etc. out in the open. There’s stuff here (even in its smaller size so far) that I don’t see elsewhere. One of these has the grain mill I’m looking at, the other has the belt-driven jig saw I looked at last year, and also baskets with canvas backpack straps.

That’s what I need to do with my rope baskets when they’re done. I need to do that threading for backpacks. It’ll make them more stable and useful and stop the “now what do I do with them” syndrome.

I found a dated video on Quartzite, which includes some funny anecdotes. Quatzsite has (or had at one time):

• Covered wagon, camel, and ostrich jockey races. (I’ve heard of the camels and chariots, but the ostrich races are new to me).

• Greasewood Golf Course – the “green” is oiled sand, to keep the ground from blowing away.

• The local McDonald’s used a water-witch to find its second water well. (Possibly a first for any restaurant).

• Patton trained troops with tanks here (which I heard last time).

• Women were trained at the airport during WWII – they flew planes out to the transports, where the men took over.

They have a beginner’s guide to water dowsing at the jewelry store, which I looked at with some interest. It has a section on pendulums (Aha! A better use for the stone penis!). I’m a bit skeptical of the pendulum idea, because a washer on a string will one way or the other, supposedly depending on an individual’s magnetism or polarization or something. If that’s the case for a different system, wouldn’t a pendulum always turn one particular way in dowsing, unless the person holding it gave it to someone else (whose polarization was different)? In that case, could you water witch with a washer? I’ll have to try it. And if water dowsing was traditionally a divination, what about the whimmy-diddle-gee-haw, now a children’s toy? If the whimmy-diddle was considered a lie detector because of the way it can be made to change directions, it stands to reason that it could have been used as a divination tool as well. There’s not much difference between a forked stick and the propeller-topped whimmy diddle. (For that matter, why not try to witch with that?)

Today was a somewhat shortened shopping day because of meeting the people with the metal detectors. They gave me many tips (shoulder straps, headphones) and advised about thinking about what was in the past rather than what is now (such as when houses are moved down the road). Also said to run to old outhouses. But to not enter historical sites, because they confiscate your detector. They were right that their dector was easier to see, larger print, had icons and did not chirp except when it detected something. (I played at finding several thrown coins in their “yard” beside the motor home). The White XLT.

They were happy that I was thinking of old coins under bleachers and at fairgrounds. It’s nice to be praised for any scrounging abilities I have outside of the family. (Everyone else kind of says, “Why? Good Lord, why?”). I like the large icons on the detector, but do have a bit of difficulty reading the lines below, and holding the thing will take practice, as it makes my arm tired. But we’ve all exchanged phone numbers, so I have people to advise me on how to use it, etc. So now we’re on the lookout for that kind of detector. Mom swore we would find one if we thought hard enough.

While we doing this, someone bought the larger penis stone with the etched face, and when Mom asked for the fertility charms, the man brought out a stone one 6 inches around and 4 inches long, if not more, with a bear-like creature sitting at one end. Mom said, “Well, that makes you shudder to look at it.” We settled instead on the smaller ordinary kind and I plan to mail to my friend. Upon contacting her, she decided this would be easier to conceal, and I decided it would be much easier to mail, seeing as how I can avoid postal workers jibbering about why in the world I would ever want to mail such a thing anywhere.

Went to a few other shops, exploring old short banjos and other stuff in various states of disrepair. Found a nice heavy metal model train engine. Mom got a wind-up watch pendant for me.

Arrived home at 6 before dark. Took out my hoop and stick and wore my bright orange jacket, as I was playing in what was likely at the very least an ATV road. I found that if I angle things right, I can make the hoop roll down our hill, through the rocky wash, and up the other hill. I tried the smaller altered hoop picture hangers, but they’re not heavy enough to do much rolling so far. Maybe tomorrow, or when the crowds come in the shops, I can try to jump the wash at high speed. Something to play around with.

We bought a bag of candied cantaloupe in a shop where they sell different honeys, like avacodo honey, and then we went back to the jam man, and bought pickled okra, FROG jam (fig, raspberry, orange and grape), strawberry-rhubarb, and peach. Other jams I’ve seen around are candied dill pickles (which sounds too sweet), berry chipotle (which sounds good — I bet we could make it with Persian peppers), and prickly pear jam, which I expect in the desert.