National Lampoon's Texas Vacation

Well, I had a nice day to relax.

You should see us all. We're dead on our feet. Need a vacation from our vacation, as usual.

You know, I am beginning to think those reports that the Germans and Swedes have vacationing figured out WAY better than we do are right. The average German receives 2-3 times the amount of paid vacation time from his/her employer than we do...and it's mandated by law.

Many of them even get more than that.

I would think that if you had a few months off each year, you could get your "vacationing" done, and still have enough time to get yourself out somewhere and just relax.

Ever been on a beach, and enjoyed your time there without a care in the world? I used to live on Galveston Island, Texas. When you can spend lazy days on the beach you would be amazed how peaceful you can become. Of course, you can get your ass a 3rd degree sunburn if you sit out there peacefully for too long, but I'm sure you get my point.

Okay, so now that I've finished whining like a little weenie...

I lost my wallet en-route to Texas. I had everything in it, and yes I could even be the poster child for American express Travelers Cheques; I had all my money, cards, identification, you name it...I had it all in my wallet. Needless to say, I didn't hit a lot of gift shops while out and about.

Fortunately, my brother John was kind enough to lend me his pickup while we were in Texas. This saved me a few hundred bucks by keeping me from renting a car, and the bonus of driving around home in a truck was welcome.

Now I wont bore you with all the details, but I will say that it was really damn fantastic getting a chance to spend time with family again. I miss being home a lot sometimes, so this was really good for me. My parents got to meet my daughter for the first time this trip. They were really amazed with her, as is everyone who meets her.

It was really fantastic seeing my father again. He and I are the best of friends and it hurts not being together all the time. I thank God, we got to watch our first two Texans games together. Usually, we're just messaging each other the play by play or on the phone. My brothers and I got to sit on the sofa with my old man and watch a Houston football game again. I know it sounds like some lame-old jock tear-jerker, and it is....I know.

But I miss my father a lot, and it was great.

My uncle Tom really added and extra punch to the whole thing by demanding that my parents come out to his cabin up in the woods around Livingston, Texas. Apparently he'd been trying to drag them up there for like 2 years, and when I told him we wanted to come up he was all over them to come along. We all drove up there and had a real blast.

My son, Oliver, really had a blast because anytime you find open spaces for him to run around and play he is at his happiest. Heck, he even caught the first fish! He and I were just walking around and I decided to show him the little pond. One of my cousins tossed in a line, and after a few minutes I grabbed it and showed Oliver a few casts. As he and I were reeling it in BAM!! A good 2 lb bass, oh joy.

Now mind you, this is not necessarily a good thing if you consider that my son is two years old, and he's in the middle of the "mine" stage. I was already thinking to myself that I needed to come up with some way to get him away from this pond or he would never leave it, and then it hits like a brick on the end of that line. Now I have this fish, and he's jumping up and down yelling "Fitch! Fitch!"

How do you throw back a fish he just caught and got all bright eyed over? Truth be told, my first inclination was to clean the fish in front of him and then cook it up. The kid loves fish and that way he wouldn't ever have the thing out of his sight.

It would just look a little different as the day progressed.

My wife, in an ever vigilant approach to prevent the mental scaring of our very young children, decided that maybe Ollie didn't need to see his Daddy cut into his new friend with a big knife and then force him to eat pieces of said friend.

I see the logic now, and we decided to put the fish in a cooler with some water so Oliver could see him swimming. Eventually he decided the cows and dogs were more interesting, and we took the fish back and returned him to his home for now.

Oh, and my in laws absolutely fell in love with my grandmother. It's really funny. We left them with her down at the beach for a few days and they just really hit it off. There's talk of kidnapping her and bringing her out here.

New Mexico had a really fun little side trip, too. We got to visit some old friends of ours who lived out here in Bakersfield until recently. We told them that if we were ever in the neighborhood we'd come by...and it turned out we were. After that, we took a day to visit the Carlsbad Caverns. which is way cooler than I expected.

Seriously, if you're ever in southern New Mexico take the time to see this! I have been in caves before, hell Texas is lined with them, but this was breathtaking.

Okay, so now I am back to living. Thanks for all the emails while I was gone. Made for some really fun reading.


-------------EDIT----------------

12/11/2006
I'd decided not to discuss the unpleasant side trip to see my sister Pamela in this post when I first wrote it. At the time, I was drowning in the events that had unfolded and did not wish to speak about it in a public forum. To add insult to injury the events that had unfolded cast a long shadow over my character with my in-laws. Hell even Kayla was furious with me. At the time, I didn't feel that anyone understood exactly what had happened.

It took a long time before anyone truly understood, so I kept it under my hat.

In the end, my sister made a choice long ago to blame her problems on others. She'd lost two husbands and a lot of friends over the behavior. I'd always stuck by her side, and she was always there for me. She was the only person to fly out to California when my son was born, and she's always been my closest confidant growing up in a house full of loud voices and even louder personalities.

Eventually she and my mother clashed over just about everything. They're so similar in so many ways that it was bound to happen. The division of their relationship took years, but by the time she had her second child, it was complete. There are a lot of details that explain the impasse but just suffice to say neither of them will look past those details, that from the outside looking in, seem petty to the rest of us. Over time, the anger turned into bitterness and the communication breakdown left them both feeling betrayed.

Conversations about my home life with Pamela began to feel like a minefield by the time I was in my early teens. Most of us had been able to navigate the problem over the years with avoidance, but by the time she had come to visit me after Oliver was born, the "problem" had grown into something you couldn't control by just changing the subject.

I had to request that when she was in the presence of my wife and in-laws, that she refrain from bad-mouthing my parents. She seemed to understand this for a while, but couldn't resist the urge to take little pot-shots whenever she could. Over the years, she seemed to ignore the requests to stop completely. Even pleasant phone conversations with my in-laws contained at least one derogatory statement about my mother. Watching my in-laws shift uncomfortably as she said these things forced me to demand that it stop. All it ever did was just stem the tide for a while.

Shit I could go on and on.

Lets just say that this pissed me off a lot. Fortunately, as far as my in-laws were concerned, it wasn't that odd. They understood first-hand what family feuds could do to a family. They seemed unfazed by the comments and were eager to meet my parents. The trip to Texas was planned, and we were off.

I made the decision not to visit her first en route to Houston because I wanted to see my father, and I didn't want to have Pamela re-hash her feelings about my parents days before my in-laws finally met them. This change in plans was met with resistance by everyone, but I didn't care. I just wanted to get home to my parents with my children and the family who had made me feel so at home, so far away.

This decision was seen as an act of betrayal by my sister. I should have learned my lesson from the my last trip back to Texas, where she became furious with me for delaying the visit to her home by a day. On a deep, emotional level, she had taken possession of me and my family as part of her own. She felt that she had been responsible for raising me early on, that she was the only one who truly cared for me now, and that our bond was such that I should come to pay "homage" to her before her sworn enemy. It was a trainwreck waiting to happen and I should have seen it coming.

When we did finally make it to her home, she seemed pleasant and inviting (albeit, annoyed). We had all shared a nice afternoon with each other, and were close to settling in for the evening. Then Pamela began to drink. Unbeknownst to me, she had begun to see a psychiatrist about her emotional issues and was taking prescription anti-depressants. The mixture loosened the gates on her feelings about me choosing to see my mother before her, and the fight was on. I decided not to avoid the issue and vehemently demanded she stop with the same old song. Her problems with my mother were not my fault and it was embarrassing.

The argument hinged on her perception of my betrayal. I couldn't convince her that by waiting to see her on the last leg of the journey, that we had assured more time at her home without the pressure of schedules for visiting other relatives. Nothing I said made any difference. I had chosen my mother over her and was refusing to listen to her bitch about it.

Eventually she snapped and chucked a beer bottle at my head. I immediately walked right up to her and demanded she sit down. I demanded she stop. She said no and chose to kick me between my legs and scratch me furiously. Bad idea.

You bet your ass I popped her a good one right on her ear. I then marched my wife and children right to the RV and explained we were leaving. I also explained to her that if she didn't leave me alone I'd hit her again. We left Texas that very moment, and rode home in a silence that could only be perceived by what we were not saying.

This was my sister who had chosen to devote her entire existence to the lamentation of her childhood and her failed relationship with my mother. Hell everyone in her life. This was my sister whom I trusted above all else. This was my sister who had chosen to poison her entire countenance with an incessant struggle with everyone. To make us all see that life has wronged her and should somehow recompense.

I have not spoken to her since, other than to tell her that I will not speak to her. I have been told that the obsessive tirade continues, even to the point of further ostracizing her from those few in my family who still choose to keep in touch with her. My grandmother, who is close to death, recently had to have my aunts and cousins ask her to leave from a family get-together because of it. I'm sure when I go home for the impending funeral, that there will be a confrontation.

As I write this passage three years after the fact, I am saddened by the fact that my sister and my mother do not speak. I am saddened more by being cut off from my nephews, whom I love and miss terribly. I am also saddened that I will most likely never be able to have a relationship with Pamela's husband; a man I am very happy she married. I'm concerned they'll all be one of the main sources of the confrontation when it happens because the only way to happily live with Pamela is to agree with this bullshit.

The only good to come out of this is that I was the brother she decided to attack. Any of her other siblings wouldn't have stopped at smacking her once.

Well there. I've finally written about it. (sigh)