Showertime Fun

Lovely. Bathing.

Not much fun sharing that bathing space.

I abandoned the state park yesterday and showered in town today. A different experience. It is.

Millersylvania State Park south of Olympia, WA is nice. The facilities suck. They look like they were built with CCC crews in the 1930s. I'm sure that they were at least inspired by that period.

Last year, early on, the main restroom was closed, leaving only one "bathhouse" open as a shower location, and it too often was still locked in the morning when it should have been open. Later on it was working but someone vandalized it. Even later there was more vandalism at other points in the park. Someone seemed to have as life's mission the destruction of shower facilities in the park. Whoever it was hit the coin machine parts: where you drop in your tokens and it turns on the hot water. Looked like the person had a pry bar, the way they were ripped off the wall.

This year the main (i.e. in the RV area) bathhouse has one of its two showers working, and it was fine. Fine, considering the location. At Sportsman State Park in Yakima, WA, they clean the restrooms three times a day during the summer months, and the showers at least once, maybe twice. At Millersylvania State Park the schedule seems to be by phases of the moon, if anyone feels up to it, possibly only when the howling grows loud enough.

And anyway, the facilities are old and shaky. Shoddy. Sad and rundown. Even the one working-and-available shower began balking a few days back.

I found this out when the water stopped about three minutes into a six-minute shower, leaving me covered in suds with only a slow trickle of cold water emanating from the shower head. Not a good sign. Not usually. Not this time either.

I tried banging on the meter, which procedure did not work, and tried rinsing in the drippy-drops of water coming out of the plumbing, which did not work, and tried more banging on the meter, which produced hot water.

After this, I decided to put in one token at a time, which also did not work, though adding a third token after the second one failed, seemed to be the solution, for the time being, which wasn't really quite good enough, and banging had no effect either, and so.

I had my last bath there yesterday.

Today I was back at the Olympia Center downtown. Three naked guys were there. Fun. One seemed agreeable when I asked what the fare was these days. I think I used to stuff in four quarters, so that's what I did. He said it was two minutes for each. Four quarters seemed a safe bet.

Then another guy with a hooting voice came over and started flinging verbality at me. His is the kind of voice I cannot hear (being mostly deaf these days), but it sounded like he wanted me to give him a towel, and then soap, and then money, so I gave him two quarters. Generally speaking, I'd rather give a wet naked guy a couple of quarters than my soap and towel.

I think it was rinse-and-dry-only day for him. After he finished with the water part, he went under the forced-air dryer and rubbed himself a lot and got mostly dry.

One guy left and it was just him and the other guy I'd talked to and me then.

I finished and toweled-off and dressed while Noisy Man made some phone calls begging people to send him money with the third guy's phone. I didn't want to be there but I was. Too bad for me.

About the time I was ready to go we were down to Noisy Man and me in the locker room, and he hit on me again, starting with a couple of things I could not catch, followed up by him asking in his extremely loud voice what my favorite color was. Truly.

After that was something I don't remember, but I gave him "I don't have one" as a color answer, and he hooted a few more things before I scuttled out.

You never know.

We seemed too close to the edge of an aggressive moment for my taste.

I'll be back again tomorrow, but maybe a half hour later. It could be that if he's a regular he'll be gone by then and I can still slip in and be done by the 9:00 a.m. deadline while entirely missing him. I hope.

Yeah. Real fun, but I did tell myself before leaving Ecuador that I should seek out colorful characters during this trip. So at least I'd have something to write about.

Yeah. Real fun, and today I got one. Didn't really like it though. Here's hoping for quieter times, starting Real Soon Now.

 

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Clean but annoyed, me. How's by you then?
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Why Am I Here, Really?

I still don't know nothin. Winging it.

Barely escaped rain last week. Lots of it. The worst of it.

Friday, October 11, I got up, stored what I didn't need in my little rented cubby, laundered my dirties, and left for Eastern Washington. Better forecast there. Turned out to be true. The forecast did.

I was going nuts in the Olympia area, and rain had closed in. I can't take that, not while living in a car. That life is extremely constrained. You can't get up in the middle of the night to piss. Or you can, but need to do it inside the car, which gives you one chance to get it right. And then you have to store what comes out of your peepee until sometime the next day, when you also need to go looking for a place to put it.

And whenever you leave your car to cross any stretch of ground whatsoever on foot, you pick up some wet. Which returns with you to the car, where it's really hard to get rid of it.

Have an apartment? Fine. You go out, get your shoes wet, maybe your pants cuffs, a rain jacket or umbrella, and then you come home. When there, you set your wet stuff where it will dry, and then it dries. Next time you go out, you put on your dry clothes and life is fine, except for the rain, but the rain is not a major problem.

But rain is a major problem when living in a car. Mainly because there is no place to put your wet things to dry. Wet things dry a bit, if you are a lucky and careful person, but while rain is still falling, those things do not dry completely. And if those things do not dry completely, then they will rot. Decay. Mold. Stink.

Unless you drive to the self-service laundry to use the dryer at least once a day, preferably in the afternoon, when you are done going out, and before you park for the night. The cold, dark night, when rot goes creeping.

So visiting Eastern Washington was nice. I avoided all that. For a short few days.

The first night, Friday, I made it across White Pass where there was sleet, and parked along the Tieton River near Rimrock Lake, and listened to the rain all night, but heard less of it than on the western slope of the Cascades, for sure.

This was followed by a nice Saturday, a nice Sunday, a nice Monday, a nice Tuesday, and then I was back in Western Washington, where the weather had somehow, suddenly, become nice.

Although Monday night, when I was parked on the Columbia River at Jackson Creek Fish Camp, things got windy. Srsly. The whole car was bouncing. Gusts must have hit 70mph to 80mph. Roaring gusts. Ripping gust. Roaring ripping gusts.

I knew better, but was still afraid that the car would flip over.

So that covers my sleep between 11:30 p.m. and whenever it was that I woke for the final time, around 5:30 a.m., when the whole world was calm again. And not a drop of rain, unlike the west slope of the Cascades, which I'll let Cliff Mass cover: Heavy Rain, Strong Warm Front, Flooding, and Model Problems

But what's the point here? The point is that I'm still waking up in the dark wondering what the hell I've done and WTF I'm going to do next. In different words, Why Am I Here, Really?

Right now, I guess I could say For waiting. I am waiting, and I can do absolutely nothing until the car I bought is registered, titled, and plated in my name. Can't go, can't plan, can't have fun, can't even bail out and leave and scurry back to Ecuador as a last resort.

Which is why I had even more fun last weekend than I've mentioned so far, because while at the post office on my way to the laundry, I found a FedEx envelope in my mailbox, and it was sent to an address I used to have, and Hertz, where I bought the car, seems unable to understand that the address they have from a year and a half back is no, not my address now. But at least I got the envelop. But it contained an "odometer disclosure report" which the kind and thoughtful professionals at Hertz Burien, where I bought the car, had forgotten to have me actually sign it. So there was that.

Lovely.

There was an included prepaid return label with something scribbled on it. Also a note to call, with a number. So hey. I tried that. Got ahold of Erika S, who was "in a plane over Utah". I do not jest.

Why call? Who knows. I don't.

Signed the report and sent it back, hoping for the best. Got an email the following day, saying that I would be receiving an odometer disclosure report to sign and send back. Wrote a long reply. Got no response, but may have to end up by putting this into the hands of the Department of Licensing, possibly (and I hope not) continuing to small claims court oh god no.

So I still don't know. Still winging it. Having a fucking adventure, eh?

 

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Currently screaming into the void, etc.
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Forks: Let Us Praise Metal

I did. I bought a fork. It's a good one and it's mine now.

First it was a knife. Knives are essential. How else would you stir your peanut butter? See?

You need a knife, and it has to be strong, so that's steel. You need a steel knife. That's what Wally Mart is good for. They have table knives, of which one can buy one, individually. For us singletons. So I bought one.

The peanut butter is yet to come, but I can feel it in my future. I never get far without reverting to peanut butter, and it is sure to arrive on-scene soon, expecting my knife to stir it. I am so ready, now, but having only a knife left me feeling incomplete, so I went back to the World of Wally.

And there I found Spoon. Spoon-ness. Became spoonified, with two. Had to get a package deal, but I'm set in case I bite the head off the first spoon, because I have two. Or I can commence lunch armed with one spoon in each hand, which works at times, and is mandatory at others.

So, the score: One knife, two spoons, and a box of plastic ones, plus plastic forks.

Plastic forks are amazing, but not for eating with. Likewise the knives, spoons, and so on. Amazing. But try to eat a can of cold Spam with a plastic fork. Iffy: bend, break or catapult are all conceivable outcomes.

The bendy part should be obvious, because plastic. Get over-bendy and you have breakage, which is disappointing at best, and breakage is always better than a bit of slippage resulting in catapulting food in every direction, to stick all over the inside of the car. And the cold Spam?

You were probably wondering. I understand.

Spam. It's food, even if you don't think so, but it is. Meat, and other things, packaged nicely. Keeps forever in its can until desperately needed.

A life saver if you haven't eaten in 36 or more hours and need fat, and can buy the "lite" sodium version which still has more than enough salt in it if you eat the whole can at one go, but lacking refrigeration and being hungry, you do. Do buy. Do savagely eat.

So I've eaten three cans of Spam as the major part of a meal in the last week-and-a-half, and damn-well worth it. Lifesaver. Did I say that yet? Miracle food. Better sauteed but hey. If you gots it, then eat it and be full. And you will be.

Fat. It has fat and once it's on your inside you're set.

But you need a decent fork for it. Plastic is entirely iffy. Entirely so. Therefore I bought a steel fork. $1.78 and worth it. It's amazing how sturdy a steel for is, which I realized when I used in on dill pickle spears. Wham. Jam it. Just jam it in, no worrying about bending or breaking or anything. You see a pickle you want, stab it and then bite. That's it. No more, no less. I love it.

So now I have flatware good enough to survive World War 3, and am content on that front. Envy me, for I am satisfied.

 

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Currently wondering where to sleep tomorrow.

Why Am I Here?

My problem is that I'm alive. Being dead is easy compared to this — you just lie there and rot. Anyone can do that. Even I, I think.

Probably. I may try it some day, but not quite yet.

Which leaves me wondering. Wondering "Why am I here?". Which is what I began thinking at the Cuenca, Ecuador airport (Mariscal Lamar), waiting for dark, and then waiting for my plane on Tuesday, October 1 of this year. Why. Why?

In other words, what am I doing, if anything? And why?

Still don't know, and now it's October 16 and I've been back in the U.S. for a whole two weeks. Two weeks and I still know not.

I have been busy though. That's a change. I might not know why I'm here or what I'm supposedly doing, I've been pretty busy doing it. Because doing it is better than doing nothing, which is not an option at this point. Not now, and definitely not here.

I spent the first few days fretting about missing my tidy and simple life in Ecuador, wherein I arose at about daylight and had coffee and read the news and sent a peevish reply to the local idiot gringa food blogger, a Mediterranean Diet™ proponent. (And also a low-process proponent, and a strident no-added-sugar campaigner. Who loved to sing the benefits of chocolate candy as a healthy food. And also wine, though it contains alcohol, a proven human carcinogen. And so on.)

Anyway, a quiet life, full of fine coffee (one cup a day), and going out for lunch, and walking five big ones a day, and not being responsible for anything else, all while saving up gobs of money because I didn't need to spend it on anything. Quiet, boring, safe, well-defined, predictable. Yeah.

Not much to do, and no schedule, and every day a day of fine weather.

Not the same weather every day, but fine. Agreeable. Mildly interesting, and then home by dark, because I had nothing to do after dark and a single (sane) person would not be found alone on the streets after dark. Or more likely would be found, but only by someone best never met. So I was always locked in by dark.

Well, that was my life and is not my life now, and I am still wondering "Why am I here?", but a little less than last week.

I've been busy.

First with buying a car, and then with buying lots of outdoor things that I need to re-buy because I dumped everything I had a year and a half back and have to replace all of it, and then with searching all the stores for things I need to customize and cozy-up the car, and things to wear and so on. Busy.

Been busy but not with importances. Busy with many little things requiring lots of thought and much careful shopping. They kill time.

What I'm really waiting for is my car's license, registration, and title. Should be here by November 18 at the latest, the last day I can legally operate with the temporary documents. Meanwhile the rain is closing in.

The last two weeks were good. Lots of sun after a little rain. Monday afternoon was even uncomfortably warm, given the layers of insulation I've been wearing. Rained last night. More this morning. Eighty percent chance for tomorrow, and so on for another week, after which it might let up for a day or two, but winter, you know. The Big Inevitable.

Lovely weather in its own way, this wet stuff, but I am living in a car. Living in a car means that your space is always over-populated. There are fights. Swearing. Spills. Lost goods. All kinds of things. And you are always in public. Always, even while parked out in the woods. Because you never know. Really. You never do. People come out of nowhere, at all hours, doing every variety of odd thing. Though usually, in the woods, it's quiet, if a long drive from town, and I don't have my car fixed up so I can sleep in it unobtrusively while in town. Not yet.

I am working on it. It's a thing. One of many things. One of the many things that are keeping be busy and not wondering "Why am I here?", which I still do anyway, in every odd moment.

Well, it will either get better or it will get worse, or it will stay the same. Pretty much like the price of real estate, so there's no real progress on that front, is there?

Maybe I'll know more later.

 

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Currently making the transition from old creepy guy to creepy old guy.
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