For some reason I haven't wanted to continue writing about my Ridgecrest experience, but I think I'll just get 'er done tonight. Our vacation is moving along and pretty soon the next chunk of it will be over too. Better write about Ridgecrest while I still remember it.
So our full day in town was busy, too busy for the twins. We started out at the fountain at City Hall where we were going to meet some friends... but they never showed up. Here's our view as we waited:
At 10 o'clock in the morning it was already very hot, that kind of evil dry heat that saps your soul.
After giving up on those friends, we went to visit our old neighbors and friends from the tortoise club. They were home and waiting for us. Our old street seemed different -- a lot of changes in the past year, people selling and buying, moving in and out -- but their front yard was still wonderfully full of male (desert and other) tortoises...
and this lovely lady lives in the backyard with the other females:
I wanted her to come out so I could see how big she's gotten, but this is as far as she came. She's a Sulcata, not a desert tortoise, and we know she's female because she unfortunately produced a fine family last year.
Our friends went out to lunch with us, and that was unfortunate too, because the boos were horrid. Hot, tired, tired of being good. I was tired of making excuses for them too.
After a TV break back at the hotel, I met up with some old friends at the Maturango Museum, and we visited until 4 pm, when one of them drove me to John's Pizza (Rocket Boy and the twins were meanwhile picking up two other old friends to take them out to dinner with us). The boys ate a bite or two of pizza, but spent most of their time in the somewhat refurbished game room.
After dinner, Rocket Boy and the twins took our guests home, and since it had gotten a little cooler (maybe 98 or 99) I decided to walk down Ridgecrest Boulevard from John's Pizza and wait for them to circle back and pick me up. I stopped in the bookstore and bought a mystery, and Rocket Boy and the twins joined me there (he bought a book about Trona). From the parking lot the twins could see the Shaved Ice Shack parked a block away, and I said sure, we can have shaved ice, why not, we're on vacation. So we walked over there (RB moved the car), but the Shack was temporarily closed. "Back Soon -- gone to get more ice!" the sign said. So Ridgecrest. "Maybe while we're waiting, we could get our hair cut," I suggested. The "salon" where we all used to go was just across the street and we had talked earlier about maybe paying it a visit.
Right around then, or maybe a bit before, I started to get this funny feeling. It had been a hard day, despite seeing so many old friends -- so hot, and the twins were so bad. (One of my friends referred to them as "willful." I'm sure it's an accurate description, but what does it even mean? Does it mean they're intrinsically naughty, or does it mean I'm a bad mother because I haven't beaten the willfulness out of them? Or maybe both? Is it really bad to have a strong will, or only bad when you're a child? Is willful a euphemism for spoiled rotten?)
Anyway, I was tired and hot, but instead of getting cranky or collapsing in a heap on the sidewalk, I felt a mild euphoria starting up. Nothing extreme, just this faint memory of what it was like to be 19 instead of almost 54 on a hot summer night, nearly the longest day of the year. Deep within myself I had a very slight urge to start dancing down the sidewalk. I didn't do it, of course. Instead I suggested we get haircuts. I guess that's the difference between 19 and almost 54. But we did go and get haircuts, all four of us, for a total of $36 (mine was the priciest). Then we went back across the street for shaved ice, and I admit it, I did a couple of dance steps. I think it was the music -- the haircut place is 2 doors down from a local radio station, and you could hear the music in the dusty quiet of the Ridgecrest evening. Or maybe, just maybe, it was something else entirely. A visceral memory of the Ridgecrest I knew 35 years ago.
Next morning we went out to our previously-missing friends' place for a visit on our way out of town. It was beastly hot at 11 am.
We played hopscotch in the dirt, saw their resident roadrunner.
And then it really was time to get on the road. We had lunch at the Denny's in Mojave for old time's sake, but didn't stop in Palmdale at all. We had people to see in Los Angeles, and the rest of our summer vacation was waiting for us.
I don't know when we'll be going back that way again.
4 comments:
I'd love to know how the 'badness' in your boys manifests itself? What do they do?
They get out of control -- being silly escalates into being crazy, there's kicking and hitting and high-pitched screaming, stuff gets knocked over, people get bumped into. At restaurants they climb under the table and start attacking the brother sitting across from them. At the place we had lunch the craziness led to a dish of ranch dressing being knocked under the table and all over the floor, seat, Rocket Boy, Kid B, and a bit on me. At the museum they started running away, yelling, running back to me, interrupting, more yelling. Eventually someone gets hurt and then there's loud crying and equally loud denials of responsibility. It all happens quickly and if I'm not focused on them (for example, I'm trying to have a conversation with old friends we're eating with) it can get wildly out of hand and I can't rein it in. But sometimes they get like that even when I'm paying close attention, talking to them, counting them, etc. It's especially common when they're tired, bored, a bit stressed out. For example, when we're on vacation, la la la.
Thanks for the detailed response. It made me chuckle.
Unless you and I have the exact same (bad) parenting style, I'm afraid my twins are almost exactly the same. They get out of control -- being silly escalates into being crazy, no kicking just yet but there is a lot of pushing and high-pitched screaming. Stuff gets knocked over - only two days ago while visiting my mom at her care home, even though I pleaded with them not to run around, they ran and knocked over my mom's sweet drink all over the wooden floor. At restaurants they always always climb under the table as though that's where the seats are. They sit on the floor under the table and assure me that they're just playing. Inevitably there is crying within minutes and as they try to climb ON to the table, someone's drink gets knocked over. Talking to them and counting them used to work, but by now they know that the counting in a restaurant setting is but an empty threat. It's only serious when we are at home. And all this is with not one but two iPads -- they have one each! It worked like a dream for 18 months. No longer as effective. I dare not ask how you drove all those miles across the country with them in the back of the car. And no iPads? I salute you!
My twins are not yet old enough for the interrupting and the denials of responsibility though I now know what i have to look forward to in 2015!
It's called Twin Escalation Syndrome according to somebody, and while I don't think all twins act like this, it's nice to know ours aren't the only ones! Funny that yours go under the table too. When they were younger we sometimes were relieved when they did that, because then other people wouldn't notice them as much, but I think 6 year olds should be able to stay in their seats. We do count them in restaurants -- when they get to 3 they either have to go for a walk with one of us (only works if you've got 2 parents there) or they lose a privilege, such as dessert. But mostly it doesn't work.
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