Here Comes (The Uncle Of) The Bride

As mentioned, last week found me winging my way to the UP for my niece Jourdan’s wedding.
I travelled to the UP for this despite the fact that 1. I’d already been there just a few months ago for Jourdan’s graduation from Nursing school and 2. This meant missing out on the Baltimore Comic-Con (with Guest of Honor Stan “The Man” Lee), so that ought to give you some indication of how important my niece is to me.
The flight there was mostly uneventful, except for two things.
One was the little girl sitting next to me who provided a fair amount of irritation, mostly due to her attempts at singing.  She couldn’t carry a tune, so, not being able to carry it, she decided instead to beat the tune to death with a stick.
This was made more annoying by the fact that she didn’t really know the words to most of the songs she was attempting to sing.
Still, it was only a minor annoyance.
The other “eventful” thing was when, before we took off, my name was announced over the PA, and I was asked to press the call button if I was on the plane.  I did so, and nothing happened for a long time, until finally a flight attendant came along to shut the call light off and said, in response to my questioning look, “They just wanted to make sure you were on the plane.”
I shrugged it off, but there was a growing paranoia gnawing at my subconscious.  It’s not like I had anything to worry about, that I knew of, but you always hear those horror stories about mistaken identities and whatnot that lead to people ending up on “No Fly” lists, or worse.
When I arrived in Hancock and was getting off the plane, the paranoia flared up again when I was walking into the terminal and passed a Sherriff’s Deputy – there’s always one there, but at the time, given my state of mind, it seemed odd – and I was certain that I heard a voice say my name and stating that I”d just gotten off the plane issuing forth from his radio as I walked past.
(The paranoia eventually faded, then flared up again on my last day there when my bank card was rejected when I was gassing up the rental car, despite the fact that I had plenty of money in my account.)
During my layover in Chicago, I got lunch from a Johnny Rockets.  I’d wanted to get a chili dog, but that wasn’t an option, and, feeling pressured to order something right now, I ended up getting this massive lunch that made me think, “I don’t know who I thought I was ordering lunch for; this is enough for at least three of me.”
Actually, because a specific context can bring about a specific craving, what I really wanted was a slice of Sbarro pizza.  I mean, I know it’s not good, and it’s not something I would normally seek out, but when I’m in an airport it seems like the thing to eat.  However, I didn’t know if there was one anywhere nearby – or in O’Hare at all, it being Chicago and all – and I didn’t really have enough time to try to find one.
Anyway, eventually I was in the UP and, apart from the wedding itself, not a whole lot happened.  My mom has some back trouble – a bulging disc, they think – so her mobility was limited.  She had to be in a wheelchair for the rehearsal dinner and the wedding.
At the wedding itself, we nearly had a “runaway grandma.”  As I was pushing her along the recessional line and she was hugging/talking to Andy, the groom, Jourdan sort of lunged at me to hug me, and I let go of the wheelchair.
We were on a bit of an incline.
Fortunately, Andy was able to grab the chair in time.
The wedding itself ws held outside at a place called “The Bluffs,” which overlooks Houghton and Hancock.  There’s a very nice building there which serves as a retirement home for senior citizens (at least the ones who can afford it; the place is, understandably, expensive).
It may sound cruel, but it seems like kind of a waste to build such a nice complex in such a scenic locale and then fill it with old people.  Just sayin’.
The reception was held in a pavilion at a park in nearby Chassell.
I have to admit that I was pretty bored.  I spent most of the time just wandering around,occasionally talking to the handful of people that I knew there.  Eventually, after the Dollar Dance, I brought my mom home, then headed back, as I’d promised my sister I’d give rides to anyone who needed them, given that I was, of course, sober.
The next day my brother-in-law Dean said that he’d kind of wished that I still drank, so that I could have shown everyone how it’s done, as most of the people at the reception had been, in his estimation, lightweights when it came to drinking.
I ended up only having to give one person a ride home.
The next day we went back to the pavilion to clean up – I did very little in the way of helping, as 1. I’m lazy 2. My contribution was just being there in the first place – and for Jourdan and Andy to open their gifts before getting on the road and heading back to Arkansas.
During the clean up my sister discovered that one of the disposable cameras that had been left for the guest to take pictures with was missing.  She mentioned that my nephew Jacob had one with him, and asked me to check the playground area, as that’s where he’d had it.  So I checked by the playground and found the camera’s box, but not the camera itself.  Clearly Jacob had taken it apart and tossed it, but he wasn’t willing to admit it.  Later, he finally admitted that he had been – and I find this hilarious – trying to “take the memory out” after all the pictures had been taken.  11 year-olds, apparently, aren’t familiar with the concept of film.  He said he had then dropped it and forgotten about it.  I made another sweep of the playground and found it.  My sister thanked me, and called me an “Ace Detective.”  I said, “Everything I know I learned from Batman.”
Not much else that was notable – or that I feel like blogging about, at any rate – happened, other than when, during the dinner at the reception, one of the bridesmaid told my sister “That was the best potato salad I ever had!”  This is notable because the potato salad had been a joint effort between myself, Jourdan, and my niece Jenni.  Jenni did the peeling and dicing of the potatoes, I chopped the onions, boiled the potatoes and the eggs, peeled the eggs, and put the whole thing together.
It was a lot of potato salad.
There ended up being a lot of cake (and ham) left over, so I’m sure my sister and her family have cake (and ham) coming out of their ears at this point.
As for the rest, well, I told you about my trip back to NoVA, so I think that pretty well covers it.
Try viewing the album here. (It should be visible to anyone, but may require that you have a Facebook account.)

Homecoming 1 & 2: The Last Part

Day 5: Enter…Brad!

On Monday, my brother Brad arrived from Texas for his leg of the visit, and it was therefore his turn to treat everyone to dinner that evening.

Afterwards, as he likes to gamble and isn’t able to do so in Texas, he and my mom and I headed to the casino in Baraga.

I’m not a fan of gambling, mostly because, for me, it’s not actually “gambling,” since that would imply that there’s a chance of winning.

Still, I usually anticipate a trip to the casino – and more than one when Brad’s there – when I visit home, so I always budget money to lose. This time, I figured we’d be there a lot, so I budgeted a lot.

My biggest problem with gambling – besides the fact that I generally lose and lose fast – is that I really only “like” straightforward quarter slots, none of that fancy forty-five line, crazy bonus nonsense. Unfortunately, I’m in the minority there, since everyone else seems to love them.

Gamblers like them because they’re usually only one cent or five cent machines, so they don’t cost much…except that when you’re playing multiple lines with multiple credits bet on each, you’re actually spending more money each time than you would on a quarter machine betting max credits.

And the casinos love them because the lower the cost per-credit, the worse the payout odds can be. So for them, it’s win-win to an even greater extent than it is normally, which means that the kind of machines I like to play are scarce.

Beyond the matter of the odds, I don’t like those crazy machines. I mean, due to the lousy odds, I win even less often than I do on other machines, and even when you hit something, it’s only a penny, so you win like fifty cents when you hit something, unless you get a bonus. In all the times I’ve played those machines, I’ve never once hit a bonus.

Beyond that, I just don’t understand them. I watched Brad playing one of them, and he went through this whole bonus thing, and somehow, at the end of it, he’d hit one of the mini-jackpots for like $28. I watched the whole thing happen, and after he got the results I said, “This is why I don’t play these; I don’t understand a goddamn thing that just happened.”

The main thing I try to do when I’m at the casino is kill time. I don’t anticipate winning anything, so my goal is to make the money I have last as long as possible.

That’s actually part of the reason I enjoyed it when Brad and I sat down to play roulette. I don’t think I’d ever play it on my own, but it was kind of fun with Brad, and even moreso when a bunch of other people – most of them newbies – sat down to join in. It’s that rare case where I found that my enjoyment of something was actually enhanced by adding more people.

I didn’t win anything, but it took a while to lose everything, so overall, for me, it was a success.

Given that my mom lives in a one-bedroom apartment and that I can’t stay at Kim’s house because of my pet allergies, there had been some concern about where Brad was going to sleep. I had been sleeping on a air mattress that took up most of the living room, and I’m a violent sleeper, so sharing with Brad wasn’t really an option.

Fortunately, one of my mom’s friends was going to be out of town for the week, so she offered the use of her apartment, which was very nice of her. (The mattress I was sleeping on had been loaned to my mom by another friend of hers. See? There are nice people there, despite my complaints.)

So Brad opted to stay over in that apartment. Once we got back from the casino – and stopped to pick up some beer for Brad – he and I headed over there to talk for a while after my mom went to bed.

Brad and I don’t really keep in touch all that regularly, but we always get along when we’re together and can pretty much pick up where we left off (it’s the same with Kim). It helps that we have a very similar sense of humor.

Day 6: Did Someone Say “Casino” Again? Someone Did? Damn.

Over the weekend, we’d learned, an old friend of the family had passed away, so on Tuesday evening Brad, our mom, Kim, and I went to the visitation. It was, obviously, something of a down note for the trip.

Afterwards, we brought our mom home and headed out for round two at the casino.

There was a machine I had my eye on, but I never got a chance to play it, as there was this woman sitting there feeding it as if doing so were her job. She never left it the whole time I was there. I don’t think she even got up to use the restroom. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised to learn that she was wearing a diaper just to make sure she didn’t have to leave before she was damned good and ready.

At one point I walked past the roulette table and the dealer from the previous night asked me, “Where’s your grandma? Bingo?”

(The night before, my mom had come by while Brad and I were playing and said to the dealer, “These are my boys.”)

I said, “She’s at home, and she’s my mom.”

Later, when Brad and I were playing again, the dealer said to me, “I thought he was your dad, that’s why I thought she was your grandma.”

Brad responded, “His dad? I hate you now.”

Seriously, his hair may be almost totally white, but he doesn’t look that much older than I am.

Once more I didn’t win, but at the end of it all, after a good long run, I was only down fifty cents (at roulette; I’d lost more on the machines), so that was pretty good.

Day 7: The Casino Again? Really?

Kim took the afternoon off, so we all headed off to Watersmeet to go to a different casino.

Again, I didn’t win anything, and Kim was the only one to come out ahead.

We had to get back in time for my niece Jenni’s soccer game, which we did, but then it started to rain, so Brad, our mom, and I just went home.

That night Brad and I opted to to to the movie and see Get Him To The Greek, which was uneven, but the parts that were funny were really funny.

Oh, and I finally came out and admitted to my mom and the rest of the family (and now to the wider world) that I started smoking again.

Yeah, I know.

Day 8: Farewell

Thursday evening found us all at Kim’s house for a farewell dinner of pasties, as Brad and I would both be leaving the next day.

After saying our goodbyes – we’ll be back next year when my niece Jourdan graduates from college – we dropped our mom off and headed out for one last gambling hurrah.

This time I was able to get on the machine I’d been eyeing the other night. You could choose the credit denomination on it (five, ten, twenty-five, or fifty cents), so I decided to kill time playing nickel credits. I started hitting, and had eventually built up more than the twenty dollars I put in, so I switched to quarters and kept hitting.

Meanwhile, the lady who’d been monopolizing it the other night came and sat down right next to me, and I could see that she was absolutely seething every time I hit something.

Eventually I had it up to around $186. I decided to try to see if I could get it over $200, and resolved that I would play it down to $150 otherwise. After all, it was hitting a lot, and if it was hot, I didn’t want to walk away, and $150 was nothing to sneeze at (it would put me ahead $90 for the night). Eventually it went cold, and I cashed out at $150.

Thankfully, I got confirmation that I’d done the right thing; a string of people – but not the lady who’d worked it the other night, oddly enough – tried it after I left and no one hit anything to speak of.

We called it an early night, as Brad was gambled out and had to leave early in the morning.

Day 9: Homecoming 2

I got up very early and drove Brad to the airport, then headed back to my mom’s to sleep for a few more hours.

Brad was already back in Texas by the time I headed up to the airport.

Shortly after boarding the plane I was landing in Chicago, with only about an hour and a half to spend in the airport.

Or so I thought. I was sitting at my gate getting ready to board when I heard someone say something about it being a flight to Denver. I got up and checked the board and found that my gate had changed. Or had it? Had I just been at the wrong gate all along?

(It had changed, I later learned, when I looked at my phone and saw the alert from Orbitz telling me about the gate change.)

So I went to the correct gate and an announcement was made that due to thunderstorms…somewhere, my flight was delayed by twenty-five minutes.

Eventually I got on the plane, but we were delayed even longer. Thunderstorms in the Ohio-Pennsylvania region had created a narrow traffic corridor for flights headed in this direction, and we were like number sixteen in line to depart.

Fortunately, we got moved up again, and eventually I arrived in DC about forty-five minutes later than scheduled.

Unfortunately, my late arrival – and Scott forgetting that I was flying into National – plus the time it took for my bag to come around, meant that I ended up cutting into the dinner plans that Scott had with Stacy and her visiting cousin (and for me, if I were interested, but I was too fried to think about doing anything other than going home).

Sorry about that.

Upon arriving at home, I found that, thankfully, the place was still where I left it, though I regretted not leaving the A/C on and set at like eighty or so, as it was over ninety inside.

But at long last my two homecomings were behind me.

Next year I’ll have to do it again for Jourdan’s graduation, but one of these times I’d like to just send Kim the money I would spend on a plane ticket and a rental car and have her and the family use it to come out to visit me.

My reasons aren’t purely selfish; I think the kids would like to see DC. Hell, just riding the Metro would be cool for them. And I know Dean would dig the Air and Space Museum, so I’m hoping it’ll happen one of these years.

In any case, that’s a rather c0ndensed telling of my travel adventures. There’s a lot I left out, some of which I will fill in as time goes by, some of which I won't, but those were the highlights, at least.

I’m always glad to make the trip, even though I hate making the trip. I had a good time with Brad; as much as he loved the Navy, I think he’s really glad to be out, and the fact that he’s happy with his life – he’s currently attending culinary school, with plans to open his own bistro/catering business – has an impact on how he responds to life, so as a result, he was even more fun to be around than usual.

Ultimately, while I do miss my family while I’m here, this place – despite having problems of its own – is home now, and it’s always good to be home.

Homecoming 1 & 2: The Second Part

Day 2: Welcome to God’s Country

On Friday morning I decided to get a haircut, as I was a bit overdo. I kind of like getting my hair cut when I’m at home because it’s cheaper than it is here, and there isn’t (much of) a language barrier, so it’s easy to explain what I want done.

So I headed to the crumbling center of despair that is the local mall (Retail space available! Nearly 70,000 square feet!). At its peak, it was never exactly huge, but these days it’s just depressing. Not counting the five-theater multiplex, there are only about ten businesses actually operating there. This is part of the reason that, when I talk about what it’s like back home, I describe it as being like the opening scenes of some gritty documentary about a town where the factory shut down, except that every town is like that.

I went to the old barbershop, walked in, and sat right down, as there were no other patrons. The owner, who recognized me, did the job. He asked the usual battery of questions, such as, “Where you livin’ now?” When I said Virginia, he responded, “Virginia! That’s why you talk funny now; you’re livin’ out there with them hillbillies!”

*Ahem*

Yeah. I live 40 miles from the seat of government of the world’s only remaining superpower, in a huge tech sector where many of the world’s most successful companies have a presence, in the most affluent county in the country, with a diverse population, surrounded by thriving businesses and cultural centers, and I work for the second-largest cable provider in the country.

We’re hillbillies, all right.

In the course of our delightful conversation, I was informed that “them Indians don’t know no better,” and got to hear such sophisticated – to my hillbilly sensibilities – terms as “fuckin’ niggers.”

In the days leading up to my trip, I’d wondered aloud to my friend Dan what I was going to do for eight days in “God’s Country.” He asked, “Is there anywhere you ever wanted to go growing up? Or anything that you always wanted to do?” I shrugged, and thought, “Yes, and yes: somewhere else and get the hell out of there, respectively. And I already went there and and I already did that.”

I suppose I’m not being fair. The racist fucktard barber isn’t really a representative sample of the – oh, who am I kidding?

Still, it’s not like there aren’t good people there; of course there are.

Even under the layers of stupidity and bigotry, that barber is probably a pretty decent guy. And I don’t mean to suggest that I think that I’m better than they are, because anyone who knows me can tell you that I have plenty of faults – and there are probably many people who would be more than happy to expound on those faults in great detail – but…well, in some ways, I am better than they are.

But here’s the thing: so are they. They don’t have to be the ignorant, close-minded, hateful, fearful bigots they so frequently – and casually, and proudly – show themselves to be. They’re also polite – for a given value of “polite” – hardworking and industrious, and generally a pretty hardy bunch. If they could just…well, you get the idea.

And that's the other thing. Sure, I’m a thousand miles – and in some ways, a whole world – away from them, but I’m also them. They are an indelible part of me. That’s where I came from, that’s where I grew up and became the person I am. As different as I may be on the surface, underneath it all, I’m the same.

Despite what I’ve said above, you might still find yourself wondering, especially if you’re one of the people who still lives there, “Seriously, Jon; why do you hate your home so much?”

If ignorance, coupled with an unearned feeling of superiority, and casual racism, along with a depressed economy, shitty winters that last way too fucking long, and pure, unadulterated contempt for anything and anyone that is even slightly “other” aren’t enough, how about the sheer, mind-numbing boredom? The soul-crushing despair?

Just being there makes me sad, down to my very core. It breaks my heart, especially since there are people there whom I love deeply – they are, after all, the only reason I keep going back – and I hate thinking that they might feel like I’m judging them somehow – because I’m not – just for staying there, and for living their lives and finding whatever happiness they can. I get that. I do. It’s their home.

But that’s another thing that makes it all so painful; the fact that is home. I should be happy to be there. But I just can’t do it. I should feel safe, and comfortable, and at ease, but all I can think about when I’m there is getting as far away as fast as I can.

Everywhere I look I’m reminded of some bitter resentment that I thought I’d let go and moved past a long time ago, but which I find is still just as raw and fresh as the day it was formed.

And maybe it is just my problem. Maybe it’s not so bad as I make it out to be. After all, the ruined buildings and soon-to-be closed new businesses aside, it really is beautiful there. There is, as an artist I once spoke to said, a quality to the light that you can’t find anywhere else. In the summer it’s green as far as the eye can see; in autumn it’s like the whole world has been set ablaze, and even the interminable gray winters have a stark beauty that is nothing short of magnificent.

And yet…

Day 3: Life’s a Beach

On Saturday we had a picnic with my brother-in-law’s family and others. It was a nice day, but it was hot and extremely windy.

Throughout the course of the picnic my sister kept pointing out some guy every time he walked by and asking me if that was Abel – my best friend from when I was a kid. I told her that it wasn’t, because I thought he looked too young.

Later, he came over to us and said, “I knew I recognized these people!” Turns out my sister was right and I was wrong.

I’d never seen – or heard of – the car I had as a rental before getting into it in the parking lot at the airport, but as we were leaving the beach where we had the picnic there was another one parked right next to the rental. I’d also seen one at Wal-Mart the day before.

On Sunday we were having another picnic, as my other sister and her husband were coming up. They were also bringing my brother’s son with them, which was why I decided that my nephew Jeremy was going to get hosed: I hadn’t bought a shirt for Todd, as I hadn’t expected to see him, but upon learning that I would be seeing him, I decided that he’d get the shirt intended for Jeremy.

Jeremy ended up getting a better deal, though, as I slipped him a twenty, which is what all three shirts had cost me.

That evening I headed over to my sister’s house to watch the family set off their fireworks a day early, and then it was back to my mon’s apartment to get ready for round two.

Day 4: Life’s Still a Beach

And so we found ourselves back at the beach for another picnic. My sister, brother-in-law, and nephew made the drive up and we sat around – on a slightly cooler and less windy day – and did the picnic thing.

This time around we had steaks – which was my idea, and which were a big hit – rather than hot dogs and brats.

At one point I decided to go for a swim, which is when I learned that I’m getting wimpy in my old age. First of all, for someone who spent a good portion of his early years running around barefoot at pretty much all times, I found myself doing a lot of, “Ow! Dammit! Son of a – “ as I walked over the sticks and rocks on my way to the water.

For another, that water was cold. I nearly turned around and walked out, but then I thought, “This is the guy who used to routinely swim in Lake Superior, where the temperature below the surface seldom gets above 37 degrees? This is like bathwater in comparison. Suck it up, hillbilly.”

When I was a kid, if I could have found a way to live in the water, I would have done it in a heartbeat. At 38, I soon found myself thinking, “Okay, I’m in the water…now what?”

So I got out and changed back into my clothes just as it started to rain and we had to bring the picnic to a close anyway.

That evening, despite having no interest in seeing it, I went to see The Last Airbender with my brother-in-law Dean and my nephew Jacob. I wasn’t impressed, but none of us had any interest in attending any of the local 4th of July festivities, so what else was there to do?

Later that night, I could hear some fireworks going off somewhere distant, but couldn’t see them. It was fine; the sun was actually putting on a brilliant display of its own.

See what I mean about the beauty thing?

And as the sun sets on Day 4 of my trip home, so too does it set on this entry. Come back for the – hopefully less dour – Homecoming 1 & 2: The Third Part.

Homecoming 1 & 2: The First Part

So July 1st found me winging my way back to the UP for eight days for my annual visit home, which is why posts have been even more scarce than usual of late.

What follows is a day-by-day breakdown of my trip.

Day 0: Wait, what?

There’s no such thing as a “direct flight” from Northern VA to the UP (or vice versa), so a trip home always requires a layover somewhere. In the past that typically meant either Minneapolis, Detroit, or both (I don’t remember if it was VA>Minneapolis>Detroit>UP or if Detroit came before Minneapolis, or, again, vice versa for the return trip), but Northwest/Delta no longer provides service to the UP, so the new route involves a layover at O’Hare. (As an aside, in his youth, before O’Hare was built, my dad worked at Midway airport in Illinois. Surrounded by a bunch of Irish people, he opted to put “O’Maki” on his lunchbox. When asked what part of Ireland his family was from, he responded “The northern part.”)

I like to keep the number of layovers to a minimum, and like them to be no less than an hour – to allow me sufficient time to get to/from the BFE gate from which UP flights depart/arrive – and no longer than two hours. So when I’m booking flights – having gotten burned by a random seven-hour layover in Indianapolis that I didn’t notice until it was too late – I pay careful attention to where my connection is made and how long I have to wait before departure.

I do not, however, pay close attention to which airport I’m flying out of VA from, as, since that’s what I search on, I assume it will be Dulles.

However, the day before my flight, in looking at my itinerary, I was reminded of what happens when you assume, as I noticed that my flight was actually departing from National (I don’t like calling it “Reagan” because, well, Reagan), which is considerably further away from my house than Dulles.

D’oh. Scott was willing – if reluctant – to get up early and haul my ass down to National, but it would have meant sacrificing movie night. As we wouldn’t be having another for two weeks, I was reluctant to give that up. Fortunately my friend Sheila, who lives in Leesburg, was willing to bring me in.

So after having movie night, I set to packing and preparing, staying up late trying to load up some new songs on my iPod (Note: I fucking hate iTunes), and generally preparing myself for the day ahead of me.

I thought about using some of my iTunes (Hate!) credit and downloading a movie, but honestly, despite the length of the overall travel time, the amount of time I spend in the air at an altitude at which the use of portable electronics is not prohibited isn’t really sufficient for watching a movie, and I don’t like having my hearing interfered with when I’m in the airport.

Day Two: Better Late than Early

Sheila arrived a bit late in the morning, but it was just as well, as traffic wasn’t as bad as expected, and I arrived at National nearly two hours before my flight.

When I checked in at the kiosk, I pushed the button for one when it asked how many bags I was checking. It then charged me $35. I thought, “Isn’t it supposed to be $25?” but then shrugged it off.

The guy at the counter wasn’t so nonchalant. “Where’s your other bag?”

“I only have the one.”

“It charged you for two. See? $35. That’s the charge for two bags. It’s only $25 for one.”

“I don’t know what to tell you. I hit one.”

This caused him great consternation, and he looked at me as though I were some sort of troublemaker. He called someone over for assistance and explained the situation. The person he called over said, “Yeah, it’s been screwing up all morning.” It was clear that the guy wasn’t satisfied with this explanation – and thought that I was up to something – but he finally printed out the thing and had me put it on my bag, reiterating that I had, in fact, been charged for two bags, and clearly annoyed/confused by the fact that I didn’t appear to give a shit, stuck the label on my bag and told me to bring it over to TSA, which I did.

To kill time, and because I always mean to do so but never remember, I decided to buy some Washington D.C. T-shirts for my sister’s kids (minus Jourdan, who is off in Arkansas for the summer), and soon was on my way.

The layover in Chicago was brief, and the flight to the UP – at just about an hour – was even more brief, and soon I was back in “God’s Country.” I guess that, seeing as how He owns the whole universe, technically everywhere is “God’s Country,” but I find it amusing that so many places lay claim to that title.

When people tell me that UP is “God’s Country,” my response, which is greeted with bewilderment and/or narrow-eyed suspicion, is typically, “He can keep it.”

After picking up the rental car – a Chevy HHR – I was on my way to my mom’s place. After greeting several of my mom’s friends and killing some time, we headed to Perkin’s for me to engage in the traditional homecoming ritual: buying everyone dinner.

I didn’t (and don’t) mind. After all, the total isn’t that much more than what I’d typically spend if Scott and I eat somewhere halfway-decent and I spring for the bill.

That evening I went for an overly-ambitious walk – the cities of Houghton and Hancock were designed by maniacs and built on the sides of very steep hills – and, after inflating a very large air mattress one of my mom’s friends had loaned her, Day 1 came to a close.

And so does this entry Stay tuned for Homecoming 1 & 2: The Second Part.

Vacation All I Ever Wanted...

In determining when I was going to make my trip to Michigan I had to consider two factors:

The court date for the person who wrecked my old car, as apparently I’m supposed to get a subpoena to appear at his trial.
When my brother Brad would be available to make the trip, as he had suggested that we should go at the same time.

I never got a subpoena – and the trial keeps getting continued; currently it’s set for September 1 – and it eventually became apparent that Brad’s schedule wasn’t going to align with mine.
I ultimately decided on August 13th through the 20th.
Then there was the Riff Trax Live! thing, which meant that I had to be back before 8 PM on the 20th.
I decided to make it the 12th through the 19th, but for whatever reason flying out a day earlier would cost an extra $200.
I would have been able to get a flight back on the 20th that would get me here relatively early in the afternoon, but I didn’t have faith that there wouldn’t end up being some sort of delay, so my week in Michigan turned into six days, though with my relatively late arrival on the 13th and my early departure on the 19th it was really more like five days.
In any case, what follows is a chronicling of the events of my vacation, which actually starts the day before I left.
I had intended to duck out of work a little early on Wednesday to get some stuff done and to give the house a thorough cleaning so that I wouldn’t have to deal with returning to a mess. That plan was torpedoed by having to schedule a meeting a t3:00 and then having to make some changes to a document before finally taking off.
It was after 6 by the time I got home, so I ended up just giving the house a quick once over and doing laundry and packing until around midnight.
Thursday morning my friend Dan from work came by ridiculously early in the morning to bring me to the airport.
My flights were largely uneventful, with a long, boring layover in Minneapolis, and sometime before 5 I found myself in Michigan. I’d managed to pack everything into a small carry-on bag and a backpack, so once I arrived I was able to just pick up the rental car – the nice thing about the Houghton County Memorial Airport being so tiny is that the counter for the rental car is right there as you get off the plane and enter the building, and you don’t have to make a long trek just to leave the building – and I was on my way to my sister Kim’s house.
Once there we decided where we were going to eat (Perkins), and then we headed out.
After eating, my mom and I headed to her apartment. She lives in a new place since last I visited, as her rent was getting to be too high. The new place is in a complex designed for the elderly (and the handicapped), and she has a lot of friends there, all of whom were excited to meet the son she’s been talking about for so long.
(One of my mom’s friends is the same age as she is and is constantly taking her out to do things, in an effort, as she explained to me, to “get her away from all the old ladies in their 80s and 90s”)
Her new place only has one bedroom, so there was no bed for me to sleep on. My mom offered to give up her bed and sleep on the couch – her couch is nearly impossible to sleep on – but I didn’t want to put her out, so I offered to sleep in the recliner.
I’ve slept in it many times before, but this time it wasn’t working, and was doing a number on my back, so eventually I moved to the couch and managed - simply because I was so tired – to get some sleep.
I woke up feeling unwell, but assumed that it was just the result of having gone too long without eating anything.
However, when we headed out to get lunch and for my mom to do her grocery shopping, I started feeling worse and worse, and wasn’t able to actually eat my lunch for fear of depositing it all over the table.
When we got back to her apartment I took a nap and woke up some time later feeling a bit better, but that didn’t last, so I decided to take another nap.
This time when I woke up I was back to normal, and Kim, my mom, and I headed out to the casino for the evening. Neither of them managed to win anything, and I only played (which is to say lost) $20 on one of the machines.
We didn’t end up staying very long.
That night I was willing, at her insistence, to let my mom sleep on the couch and took her bed.
In the morning, despite her claims that she’s slept on the couch many times, she admitted that the couch is largely unsleepable, and there was talk of picking up an air mattress.
One of the people living in the building was a woman who used to work as a teacher’s aide at the elementary school I went to, and she’s always loved me and is happy to see me whenever I’m around, so we stopped in to visit her. She’s a sweet old lady – she’s in her 80s, so from my perspective she’s been an “old lady” for my whole life – and she was very happy to hear that I’ve gone on to be the “big success” she always knew I would be.
We stopped by Kim’s for a while and saw an ad for a really good deal on an air mattress in a flyer, so after stopping to get some food we went to the store to buy the mattress. The one that was on sale was sold out, but they had an even cheaper one, so we picked that one up.
Afterwards I met up with my brother-in-law Dean at the boat launch and he and I (and my niece Jenni and nephew Jacob) took his boat out to Jourdan and her boyfriend’s house to do some “tubing,” which is to say being dragged behind the boat on an inflatable tube while Dean does his damnedest to knock you off.
I held on for a long time, despite Dean’s best efforts, but eventually called it quits, as the bumpiness was causing my crotch to slap against the surface of a water in a manner that was most unpleasant.
When we were most of the way back to the boat launch, the boat’s motor just stopped without warning, and Dean couldn’t get it to start back up. We flagged down another boat, which hauled us back the rest of the way.
Afterwards Dean and I went to see District 9 – which was very good – and then I went back to my mom’s place to inflate the mattress and call it a night. Or rather, I went back to my mom’s place, found that we didn’t have the 4 D batteries we needed to run the pump, I headed to Wal-Mart to pick some up, and then returned and inflated it.
It wasn’t the most comfortable thing to sleep on, but it was better than the recliner, and a hell of a lot better than the couch.
On Sunday we headed up to Copper Harbor for the day, walking through Fort Wilkins (when I get around to posting pictures, this is where most of them were taken), and then grilling up some hot dogs and brats.
It started raining while the food was cooking, so we quickly ate during the downpour and packed up and headed out. Against Dean’s protests – “We didn’t come here to go shopping!” – we stopped in one of the little tourist trap shops for a while. Naturally at that point it stopped raining and the sun came out.
We camped at Copper Harbor a lot when I was a kid, and that particular shop holds a lot of memories for me, mostly because they sold all kinds of really cheap candy. They still do, so we loaded up on sugary confections before heading up Brockway Mountain on our way back.
On Monday my mom and I took Jenni out to lunch at the Chinese buffet place, as Jenni is the only one in her family who likes Chinese food, and that evening I went over and visited with Kim and Dean for a few hours.
On Tuesday everyone came over to my mom’s for a goodbye dinner, and that night I turned in relatively early, as I had an early morning flight out.
Though I was leaving Michigan at 7:20 AM, I wasn’t arriving in Virginia until nearly twelve hours later. I hadn’t thought much about it, other than thinking, “How the hell many hours do I have to spend in Minneapolis?” When I looked at my itinerary, I saw I’d unwittingly booked a return flight that follows the Minneapolis to Detroit to Dulles path. I hate those. I spent over two and a half hours in Minneapolis – it would have been even longer if our departure from Houghton hadn’t been delayed by fog and we hadn’t been forced to circle around Eau Claire, Wisconsin, for fifteen minutes while a runway was cleared at Minneapolis – and then over three hours in Detroit.
The three flights were each about an hour long, and the whole thing struck me as being incredibly inefficient. I really need to pay attention to that sort of thing when I book flights.
On the flight to Detroit I was sitting in an aisle seat and was concerned about what sort of Lovecraftian nightmare was going to occupy the middle seat between me and the old guy sitting by the window.
I was surprised and delighted when it turned out to be a very cute and very petite young woman. I’d gotten up to let her get in, but before she sat down she had to find an overhead bin for her stuffed to overflowing carry-on bag and backpack – each of which was nearly as big as she was– and as I stood there watching her attempt to stow them away – and to keep her low-rise pants from falling down any further – I was so struck by just how adorable the entire spectacle was that it took me longer than it should have to realize that I should help her. Just as I was about to do so, another passenger beat me to the punch.
To make up for my lapse in chivalry, once we were deplaning I told her to go ahead of me so that she could get her massive luggage down. As mentioned, she was tiny and cute, and for a brief moment I imagined myself stuffing her into one of her bags – I’m sure she would have fit – and taking her home with me.
Instead I just helped her get her bags down.
I said to her, “So, all packed for your year at Hogwart’s?”
She laughed and said, “Pretty much.”
As was obvious from the amount of luggage and the “Class of 2009” shirt she was wearing, she was on her way to her first year of college. Once we were off the plane she moved out of everyone’s way, she thanked me for my help, I told her “Good luck,” and that was the end of that boring adventure.
After hours in Detroit and a brief flight I was finally back in Virginia, Scott picked me up, we stopped for dinner at Ruby Tuesday, and then I was home.
Overall it was a good trip, though I probably should have stayed a day or two longer, though really, the time goes by pretty quickly no matter how long I stay.
I’m glad to see that my mom is doing well and has so many friends. Her social life is way more active than mine. Admittedly that’s not saying much, but even so.
And that was my trip home.
I took yesterday and today off as well to give myself some time to recuperate. Going back to work on Monday is going to be rough.
I’ll most likely be back later to post some of the pictures, and to do a write-up on last night’s Riff Trax Live! event.
(Short form: it was hilarious, but the hilarity was marred by the obnoxious laugh of the woman sitting next to me)

Travelogue Tidbits

There were a couple of things I meant to mention but forgot in my lengthy post about my trip home, so, lacking anything more interesting to write about, I’m mentioning them now.
I was flying into Chicago at night when my iPod shuffled to the Liz Phair song Stratford-On-Guy, which starts out with the line “I was flying into Chicago at night.”
The coincidence amused me much more than it probably should have.
Male flight attendants, I learned, appear to be frustrated stand up comics who like to take advantage of the fact that they have captive audiences when making in-flight announcements. The problem is that they’re not funny. I understand that it must be monotonous to have to say the same things over and over again, but that’s no reason to take it out on us. We’re already suffering, and don’t need to have your “funny” voices or endless bread-related puns added to our misery.
In Indianapolis, on my way to Michigan, I saw a woman in a skintight black dress, a white jacket, and sexy black and white patent leather pumps that gave off the impression of some kind of retro 1950s pin-up. It was a really good look on her…twenty years and forty pounds ago.
The sight of it inspired me to create this cruel and probably misogynistic image:



Yes, yes, I know; I’m no prize pig myself, but on the other hand I don’t go around dressing as though I think I am, do I? In fact, if anything I dress to accentuate the fact that I know that I’m not.
I was going to just use an image of some random MILF-wannabe, but with Sex & The City being the number one movie in the country, this seemed more appropriate.
(And for the record, Kristin Davis? Still smoking hot, and way hotter than any of the others were even in their prime.)
After I bought a sandwich from Subway, the only source of food in the concourse I was on, I was looking for a place to sit and eat in the overcrowded seating area and noted that the woman in the tight black dress – who, unlike the ladies of S&TC, did not have the benefit of make-up artists and soft focus – was looking up at me rather expectantly from her table. I said, “Do you mind if I sit here?”
To some guy sitting at a different table.

Travelong...Err, I Mean "Travelogue"

Okay, we’ve finally reached the moment that no one has been waiting for: the time to write a detailed entry about my trip home to Michigan.
I had been talking to someone at work about the UP and how small it is, and I threw out a guess as to the total population. Later, I checked out the Wikipedia entry and discovered that I had overestimated by about 20,000.
I further learned that while the UP comprises nearly one third of the total land mass of the state, it only contains about three percent of the total population.
Flying out of Dulles, the thought occurred to me that going back home is like taking a trip into the past using a defective time machine that actually deposits you in some alternate timeline in which things are mostly the same, but not quite how you remember them.
This is to say that while I’m away some things change, but for the most part things, and in particular people, stay the same.
In any case, after meeting up with Brad in Minneapolis, we made our way to Hancock via one of the standard “puddle jumper” prop planes.
The flight attendant was surprisingly cute, and as I sat in the aisle seat – airplane seating is the one place in the world where I feel like I’m a really big person – her hips kept bumping my arm and shoulder every time she went past. I can tell you that she was very firm and toned, though I’m sure she was black and blue by the end of the flight.
When we arrived at the airport it became clear that this was her first flight to the UP, as she made several references to the jetway.
Not in the UP, sister; we just take the stairs down and walk to the terminal in the open air. Said air being about thirty degrees cooler than the air in Virginia, and fifty degrees cooler than the air in Texas where my brother lives.
Brad had agreed to pay for the rental car, as there was no point in us both renting a car, and the site he booked it through said that the rental desk actually closes at 6 PM. He’d rescheduled the pick up for the next day, as we were arriving after 11 PM, and Jourdan had driven up, with my mom, to get us.
Turns out the travel site has erroneous information, and the rental desk was open, so Brad was able to get the car that night.
My mom rode back to her place with Brad, and I rode with Jourdan to keep her company. I found it kind of funny that she drives the same kind of car as Kathleen, so I was dropped off at one airport in a Kia Sportage, and picked up from another in a Kia Sportage.
After staying up and visiting for a few hours, we decided to crash, and I learned that my mom’s couch is not ideally suited for sleeping on (Brad got the spare bedroom). My mom offered to sleep on the couch and let me take her bed, but seriously, what kind of son would make his mom sleep on the couch? Well, I’m not sure of the answer to that, other than that it’s not the kind of son I am.
Friday morning my mom made breakfast, and after we all got ready we got in the car and stopped by to visit my sister Kim at work. Then we headed out to Winona so that my mom could put flowers on the Katajamaki family plot, where my grandparents, aunt, and uncle are buried. My dad, as you may recall, was cremated, and so is not buried there.
(I’ve probably mentioned this before, but Maki is only part of a traditional Finnish family name. There’s usually some descriptive prefix – Kataja, in the case of my family – that precedes it. A lot of Finns dropped the prefix upon arrival in America – and some went the extra mile, dropping the prefix and taking the English word for Maki, which is “Hill,” as their last name. Not so with my family, until my grandparents had kids and chose to name them simply Maki. This is why my paternal grandparents had a different last name from mine. There are all kinds of Makis in the UP, all of whom had in the past been some different kind of Maki, like, for example, Leppamaki, or Palomaki, or Rintamaki. The dropped prefix is why there are so many Makis around yet most of them aren’t actually related to each other. As an aside, at various times I’ve had people misunderstand me when I’ve said that my name is Jon-Paul Maki, thinking that I’d said my name was Jon Palomaki. And of course there’s the old joke: What do you call a Finnish prostitute? Rentamaki.)
We were going to have lunch at the hotel/restaurant in Twin Lakes, but decided to head to the Chinese buffet place in Houghton, where I received the following fortune: A short stranger will soon enter your life with blessings to share.
Given my predilection for petite women, this works really well with the whole “in bed” thing.
We also stopped by the cemetery where my mom’s parents are buried so she could put flowers there (after we managed to remember where their graves are).
Later in the afternoon we went over to Kim’s house to visit for a while, and then the lot of us went out to have dinner at Pizza Hut.
From there, my mom, Brad, and I went to the casino, where I won $40 pretty early on, but eventually ended up giving it all (and more) back.
On Saturday there was an open house for these “luxury condos” that had been built right next to the bridge on the Hancock side. And I mean, right next to it.
We’d decided to check them out just to see what they were like. For what they were asking, the condos were not impressive, having virtually nothing in the way of high-end features, and no amenities apart from a heated parking garage. Apparently the developers expect people to pay all of that money for the view, which is impressive…if you like watching cars going by constantly.
We had a late lunch at the Kaleva Café, a place that derives its name from the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic. Most people pronounce it Ka-LEE-vuh, though it would more properly be pronounced “KULL-uh-VUH.”
The thing about small town restaurants is the service is always great. The wait staff is always friendly, cheerful, and solicitous.
Except, you know, when they aren’t, which was the case at the Kaleva. The waitress – eventually – came to our table, plopped the menus down, stared at us in silence until we gave her our drink orders, then stomped off. She didn’t get any friendlier from there.
However, and this ties in with my aside about my last name, the one bright spot was seeing this on the menu:



I, of course, couldn’t not order it.
It was essentially just a Big Mac knock-off (apparently there’s also a breakfast sandwich called the Egg McMaki), and wasn’t too bad, though it was pretty messy. Somehow that seems appropriate.
In the afternoon we went to a graduation party for some relative that I don’t know, which was as exciting as it sounds.
That evening, after eating at KFC, we headed to the casino again.
At KFC we used some coupons, and mine said that I could get potato wedges or any individual side. When I asked for cole slaw, the girl said, “Unless it says otherwise you have to get the potato wedges.” I pointed out the “individual sides” thing and said, jokingly, “Don’t argue with me! I’ve done my homework.”
At the casino I lost early and lost often, until I was down to my last $20, at which point I won about $100, which brought me somewhere past the break even point.
Normally I stick to your standard quarter slots, eschewing table games (too many people to deal with), and those fancy penny, two penny, and nickel machines with all of their wackiness and confusing forty-five line games and bonuses and whatnot, though given the popularity of the wacky games it can be difficult to find straightforward slots.
Some of the slots, I learned the hard way, allow you to choose how much a credit is worth, and generally default to $1. I went through several turns on one, playing three credits at a time and assuming that I was only playing seventy-five cents at a pop, before realizing that I was giving it $3 each time.
Brad likes to play roulette, and after having watched him play both nights, I decided to give it a shot. I was actually doing pretty well, but by the time I started playing we were getting ready to leave. Still, I started out with $20 worth of chips and ended up walking away with $55. So not bad.
Sunday was the graduation party, and despite the forecast, we ended up having a pretty nice day. It was actually pretty hot, though sometime in the afternoon the sun went away and the wind kicked up and the temperature dropped at least ten degrees.
By that time the party had dwindled down to just family, though eventually a few other people showed up, and many of those assembled started playing drinking games. I never saw the appeal of drinking games, really. I mean, for me, the only game I needed to play when I drank was the one in which I grabbed a beer and drank it. I won every time.
Beer was running low by the time my mom got tired and I brought her home, so, being the only sober one besides Kim, and venturing out into the world anyway, I was elected beer bitch. I stopped at a Citgo on the way to my mom’s place, but it was closed. The only other place that sold beer that was still opened was the Wal-Mart Super Center, so I headed there after dropping my mom off.
I was standing in line behind this young black guy whose shorts were hanging all the way down past his ass. I didn’t really think anything of it – or even notice, really – until this girl in another line said, “Excuse me. Your shorts are falling down.” He responded, a little annoyed, “I know. That’s how I want them,” though he did actually pull them up.
She said, “Oh,” and shook her head in disbelief, laughing with a sort of shocked bewilderment.
She and I were leaving the store at about the same time, so I said, to her, “Were you just being a smart ass with the shorts comment?”
Her response was that she’d “never seen anything like it,” and when I told her that it’s pretty common, she said, “Well, I guess I just wasn’t raised that way.”
I can pretty much guarantee that she was an Apostolic Lutheran – live around them long enough and you can tell just by looking at them, though when they’re with their families of 12+ children it becomes even easier to spot them – but even so, the fact that she was so dismayed by the baggy pants thing is just baffling. I mean, how sheltered a life do you have to live to have never seen that before? Even in the UP, dressing like that has been pretty common for at least fifteen years.
When I returned with the beer my sister Kristy commented upon discovering that I had the foresight to buy cold beer that at least I remembered that much about drinking.
Kim works for a Pepsi distributor, so she’d set up a portable soda fountain outside for the party. Venturing out to get myself some Sierra Mist, one of Jeremy’s friends, who’d arrived in my absence said, “There better be Jack Daniels in there.”
Deciding against a more appropriate response of “Blow me,” I simply said “Nope.”
At this point, Jeremy said, “This is my Uncle Jon, by the way.”
Eventually, wanting to avoid lengthy, beery farewells, Brad and I managed to sneak out sometime around 1 AM.
Monday morning the coldness that had moved in Sunday evening decided to stick around.
Brad and I went to Perkins for breakfast. The place was packed, as it was apparently the only restaurant open, a fact which, when scheduling staff for the day, management hadn’t counted on, so they were seriously understaffed, and the whole process took longer than it ought to have.
When we got back to my mom’s place we spotted our brother-in-law Ken loading up a chair that my mom was giving to him and Kristy – my mom didn’t come to breakfast because she was waiting for Kristy, Ken, and Todd, who’d spent the night at Kim’s, to stop by – and I noticed that it was actually snowing.
Nothing stuck, but there were definitely flakes falling.
That afternoon we went to see the latest Indiana Jones movie, which was entertaining (you can read Scott’s review if you haven’t seen it and are interested), and after eating dinner at my mom’s we went over to Kim’s to visit for a while and say our goodbyes.
That evening my mom’s friend Kathy stopped by and visited for a while, and, eventually, as I had to get up early in the morning, it was time to turn in.
And that was pretty much my trip. I’ve already given you the gory details of my long and horrifically boring return to Virginia, so that pretty much covers it.
Of my family, Brad and I are the only ones who live outside of the UP, so at various times throughout our stay there we each had to field the question, from assorted people, of when we plan to move back.
We both responded with some variation of “Well, ‘never’ has a pretty nice ring to it.”
After all, both of us left for a reason, not the least of which is that the fact that it snowed on freakin’ Memorial Day is not exactly an uncommon occurrence and is barely noteworthy.
I’m the first to admit that it’s a beautiful area – at least for a couple months out of the year, though sometimes, on a really good day, even the snow and cold can have a sort of harsh appeal – but there’s just nothing there.
There are so many people who sing the praises of small town life, elevating it to near-heavenly status, but I’m of the opinion that the people who do so either never actually lived in a small town, have their memories too clouded by nostalgia to remember what it was actually like, or had life experiences so vastly different from mine that there is simply no way in which we can find common ground.
Going to the mall, for example, was like seeing the opening scenes of some documentary about the devastating effects that a plant closure has had on a community, and it’s always like that, and has always been like that. It’s bleak and it’s depressing and there’s just no vitality to the area, and I could not, for the life of me, find a reason to stay.
I don’t mean to fault the people who do stay – though I’m at a loss to understand the people who leave and return – and I’m not looking down my nose at the place or the people (well, maybe I’m looking down my nose at some of the people), but I did my time there. It’s done, and the whole place is pretty much the quintessence of the expression “It’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.” More to the point, I didn’t want to live there.
So, yeah. That’s a big “no” on moving back.
But I do love my family, and I miss them, so the annual visits home will continue to be a tradition for a long time to come.
This particular visit seemed extremely short, though, especially with the late arrival and early departure eating up a fair amount of the available time. So the next trip will require better planning and time management.
But anyway, there you have it. I went, I saw, I left. It’s not exactly veni, vidi, vici, but then I’m not exactly Caesar.