Day 8 - A Concussion, A 12 Step Program for Plastic People, and A Badly Timed Walk in the Woods

This morning, as I sipped my coffee and considered the day that lay ahead, my wife, Kerri called to say that our daughter, Tori was on her way home from school. She had hit her head on a ride at the county fair a few nights ago and she had been spending an inordinate amount of time sleeping since then.
She was off to the emergency room. For some reason, that is her doctor's office's regular protocol - the doctors don't even bother to have you come in; they send to directly to the ER.
Worry shrouded the rest of my day as I waited for the call from Kerri with results.

I spent some time working on a few drawings and then headed off to the Rey Center where I had agreed to talk with a few kids from the school about what I had been doing during my residency (primarily hanging around in gazebos with my sketchbook and trying, heroically, to drink all the wine that people keep giving me).

It seemed judicious to focus on the sketching and downplay the wine a bit. I was looking for a seat downtown about a half hour before my talk was to start and noticed immediately that the mysterious letter in a bottle was still afloat on the raft in the pond.

It was just to chilly to go in there after it. I will get it, though. Perhaps it's a map to a lost treasure!

I considered stealing one of the boats in order to row out, but some genius had locked up all the oars.

I sighed and headed toward a seat so I could draw a bit before my talk and I came across this poor girl, sprawled out across a chair in the middle of town. She had evidently had a rough night and was sleeping it off.

It's sad, really. Poor Barbie just can't party like she used to.

I tip-toed off and settled in to work at my favorite table downtown. The one that isn't infested with hung-over party girls.

Another grueling day at the office.

I had hardly had time to get comfy and eat my pear when it was time to head up and talk to the kids from the school, who were on a field-trip to The Rey Center to learn about art from a cultured, suave, cosmopolitan artist.  Maryellen.

They were also being forced to listen to me, but still, it was probably better than a math test. I had just seen these kids a few days before and had unloaded all my best material on them then. While I had no idea what I was going to talk about today, I did have one trick up my sleeve.

I showed them a top-secret project I've been working on that is alarmingly fart-oriented. It is excessive, even to me.

When in doubt, show a drawing of somebody farting. Better still, show a half dozen drawings of people farting. Use the word "fart" copiously and gratuitously. Trust me.

I used the word "fart" about a dozen times and, sensing hostility arising in the teachers and administrators in attendance, thanked them all and turned their attention to Maryellen who would actually teach them something meaningful and, presumably, fart-free.

I slunk back into the town square to draw a bit more, but the sky looked threatening, so I opted to grab some lunch.

Clouds = Lunch

I considered grabbing a sandwich here, but when I went in and asked if the had a take-out menu, the guy said, "Nope."

You might consider a different sign, Mr. Potbelly.

 I headed home for some leftover pizza and a quart of wine.

When I arrived home, I tossed the pizza in the oven and cranked up my thrash metal on the stereo. I was sitting there, contemplating the infinite when a lady's head poked over the railing of the stairs in my living room and mouthed, "HELLO?"

I assume that she actually shouted, "HELLO?" but the leather-lunged gusto of the screaming vocalist blaring through the speakers effectively drowned her out.

I've been here for 8 days thus far and have yet to have a female head poke itself into my living quarters. I may have jumped and squealed a bit.

I snapped off the music and the head shouted "...TO CLEAN THE HOUSE!"

Of course. Chris and Len had asked someone to come in a clean the place. I knew that. I'm not used to having cleaning people come in, but I could get used to it.

Look what she did to the toilet paper!

It's pointy! Like a fancy hotel! I felt so important. Thanks!

 After lunch, I headed back down to the town common to do a bit more drawing and to search for one gazebo that I had still failed to locate. All I had seen of it were elusive flashes of white through the trees as I biked past.

As I walked over to my favorite chair and table to draw, I passed this tableau, set up under the large tent in the center of the square:

Barbie has, apparently, organized a 12-step meeting in the center of town. It's sad that so few of her friends chose to attend.

I swear I'm not making this up. I found her just like this. The poor dear needs help and I'm glad she's getting it.

I tip-toed past her sad meeting of one, overly-conscious of the wine on my breath, and found a seat on the dock alongside the pond. There, I found even more evidence of Barbie's wild night.

There, in the corner of the table.

Barbie's boot, abandoned like some plastic tribute to Cinderella during her bacchanal the previous night.

I also found this.

It looks like a teeny, tiny box of cereal, but it says Barbie on it. What would be in a box like this? Barbie Flakes? Barbie-Os? Some things are better if the remain a mystery.

I quietly returned Barbie's items to her as she sat at her lonely meeting of one, atoning for her excesses of the night before.

It seemed best to give her some time alone in the square, so I slipped off to search for the mysterious final gazebo that had eluded me like Ahab's whale.

Only less whaley.

And it wasn't actually moving.

And I wasn't at sea.

Or named Ahab.

And probably wouldn't die, strapped to the gazebo.

At least, I hoped not. The death I envision for myself involves more whipped cream and less whale.

I wandered along the serpentine paths that wrap around the town pond, setting off into a desperate wilderness.

The trail was very poorly marked and difficult to follow, but still I ventured onward, heedless of the dangers that surely awaited me.

I soon arrived at a distant outpost of civilization. A soccer field with at least 3 signs warning me not to cross the field. The field, apparently, is just for show.

The fence, while somewhat inadequate, kept me from crossing the field. Perhaps it is riddled with land mines. Unsure of what to do, I turned and headed back into the wilderness to find the white gazebo.

 I bushwhacked along the tortuous trail for upwards of a minute before I finally spotted my quarry - The Great White Gazebo.

The Gazebo is really less a gazebo than an altar of some sort.

It's kind of blocking my view of the mountain.

But, as with so many things in the valley, it does have a place to put your glass of wine.

Set somewhat apart from the main altar is a second, slightly less fancy altar. Perhaps it is for couple who wanted to get married on the first altar, but found it was already booked that day. They can get married here and spent the ceremony stealing jealous glances at the happy couple who got the fancy altar with the wine holder.

 Tired from my dangerous hike through the wilderness, I headed back homeward only to be beckoned once again into the wild.

I had been hearing throughout my stay about The Cascades, a delightful sounding series of waterfalls out in the woods.

Sorely misjudging how long the hike would be, I set off into the woods armed with my camera and nothing else, including, evidently, my common sense.

It was a beautiful hike, for sure. People who told me about it said that it took about an hour. I assumed, wrongly, that that meant round-trip. It was an hour out to the Cascades and the sun was slowly beginning its descent.

I opted to press onward, thrilled with the natural beauty of the area. Once at the top of the cascades, I was treated to some man-made beauty.

Free filthy towels!

And underpants!

And more underpants!

Seeing the underpants strewn about, I had a better idea of where Barbie may have been partying the previous night. She's lucky she didn't freeze to death.

Ancient ruins.

A random caution sign posted along a road. While taking this picture and wondering what I was supposed to be cautious of, I pictured a cartoon where a character is reading a danger sign and a weight marked "500 tons" drops out of the sky. I moved on quickly, keeping one eye toward the darkening sky.

Just as I started to get really nervous about the dwindling daylight, I saw this.

Sadly, it was not running and I was forced to actually walk down the hill.

The view from the top was pretty spectacular.

Goodbye sun, hello bears!

I slipped down the hill and found myself in a strange field dotted with locked steel doors, obviously where Waterville Valley locks the undead who would otherwise ravage the valley in search of tasty brains.

Zombie-proof doors.

Good luck getting out of there, you dumb zombies.

They even provided an access spot to keep the zombies fresh and clean. Good for you, Waterville Valley! I admire your progressive treatment of the evil undead.

I wandered off and soon came to the top of the giant ski-jump that has so intrigued me over the past week.

This is what it looks like from above.

Those kids are CRAZY!

I shook my head in wonder at those crazy kids and was just about back home when Kerri called to report that Tori had been checked out and she does, indeed have a concussion. She'll be home from school for a few days and should be fine. It may even be a blessing, as the zombies locked under the hill in Waterville Valley might not be interested in her bruised brain should they escape.

The Elizabeth Yates Award Ceremony - An Afternoon of Tasty Cookies and Boogers

"I just think that you like hearing yourself say 'booger' and 'fart', and 'underpants' in public."

That was Kerri's general assessment of the talk I gave yesterday at the Concord Public Library.

"Well, duh," I replied, "I think they gave me the award because I write about farts and boogers."

"And underpants," added my daughter, Victoria.

It is true that I may have stressed the fart and booger motif a bit more than was absolutely necessary yesterday after I was awarded the Elizabeth Yates Award. It's an award given annually to a person who inspires children to read. When Karen Landsman called me a few weeks ago to tell me I had won the award, she specifically mentioned the appeal that my books have for boys. This is a delicate way of saying that I write about disgusting things.

Naturally, when she told me that I should plan on talking for about 20 minutes, I took it upon myself to elaborate on all that is gross. I assumed that this was the entire point of the afternoon.

"I'm pretty sure the library trustees didn't need to hear about puking and eating boogers," Kerri said. "At least, not a dozen times."

"It wasn't a dozen," my son, Alex said, "No more than 10."

But the entire afternoon wasn't devoted exclusively to farts, vomit, and poop.

There were snacks to go along with it.

But, and this was sheer brilliance on the part of the organizers, before they could have snacks, people had to listen to everyone talk. Including me.

There were a variety of speakers, all effusive and eloquent.

They spoke intelligently and eloquently.

They talked about me in ways that made me sound like a real, actual writer. It made me blush.

They made kissy faces at me.

 And, after all those wonderful speakers, I began speaking and really brought the tone of the entire event down.

I did wear a tie, however, and there wasn't even a dead body in the room.

Some of my friends in attendance were visibly displeased at this point. There was evidently some slight problem with the invitations that were sent out. This was the official invite.

But, somehow, all the ones I emailed to my friends arrived looking like this:

Obviously an egregious error occurred in transmission and I'll be speaking about this to whoever is in charge of the internet.

I talked and talked and talked while the audience dreamed of cookies, cider, and munchkins, tantalizingly in sight, but just out of their reach.
Karen Landsman presented me with a certificate and a plaque and, as part of the ceremony, asked me to hang the plaque up on the wall.

This was thrilling for the audience.

And it only took me about 15 minutes to find the little hook thing and get it hung.

After I finally managed to hang it, Karen thanked everyone for coming and freed them to eat snacks.
My father-in-Law used the opportunity to fix the plaque that I had just hung. It wasn't up to his exacting standards.

Once people were free to eat, much of the hostility cleared from the air.
There was music provided by the very talented 14 year old, Madeline.

And, in a brazen, flagrant violation of the rules, we feasted in the library.

It was a fun afternoon for me because I got to talk and talk and talk and nobody could interrupt me or tell me to put a sock in it. I got snacks, a certificate, and was surrounded by family and good friends. My pals, Laura and Amy even brought gifts and cards from their students at Sandown Central School. You may recall that this is the same school where a kindergartener asked me if she could have my underpants.

Despite the fact that none of the library trustees asked for my underpants, it was a great afternoon. I'm flattered and humbled to have been given the Elizabeth Yates Award and I'll do my best to carry out the duties entrusted to me by writing about boogers even more.