60 Minute Writing: Flagstaff and Shia LaBoeuf Hotel
It’s been a while since I wrote anything, so I decided I am just going to write one of my 45 Minute Writing posts on LIFE. The stopwatch is set.
Why haven’t I been around? Well, like I said. LIFE. Primarily working on getting my economic stability, which after months and months of busting my ass has paid off, I do believe. So . . . FUCKING BREATHE. Really, everything else had to come second, when my ability to care for my daughter was put on the line. Yes, money, healthcare, those kinds of things are first when you have a kid. So hopefully I will be able to maintain a roof over our heads and medical benefits for a while. FUCKING BREATHE SQUARED.
Then it is the holidays. Last week I realized, “Holy shit! Bean is SIXTEEN!” She may not be living at home for the holidays very much longer!” Therefore, when I have not been busting buttocks at the day job, I have been spending oodles of holiday time with my daughter.
This is great. It is especially great when she is smiling and happy like she is in the “selfie” that she took last Saturday on our drive to Flagstaff to see the snow:
Believe it or not, Bean took this photo of herself as we spent a joyous stretch of time sitting in the car in a parking lot in Phoenix while my daughter gave me lessons about how to take good Selfies. My result was this:
Mind you, life with a sixteen year old girl is not always smiles and Selfie Lessons (though we have taken our share of Selfies over the past few days). Times can be turbulent. Unexpected storms can come from nowhere. Dark skies can cloud our hearts and the skies. Such was the case when I took this cell phone photo from a gas station parking lot on aforementioned trip to Flagstaff:
During the first part of the drive, the clouds were phenomenal. I kept saying, “Look at those amazing clouds!” And they truly were incredible. A huge ass winter storm had moved in, and the clouds hovered like a huge dark gray beast just above ground, their bellies pressing down on the highway. Bean, however, said, “I don’t understand the big deal. They are just clouds.” But then she put on her glasses and was like. “Wow! Amazing!” Once she could actually SEE the clouds by wearing her prescription eyeglasses she agreed the sky truly was spectacular. In fact, she took an amazing set of photos from the Phoenix freeway while the car was in motion. I want to download them from her phone and share them because they make an amazing art set of photos. Here is one that she sent me:
Because the sun came out, I thought we were in the clear for our ascent to 7,000 feet elevation as we headed to Flagstaff. The sunset a little after 6 pm when we pulled into a MacDonald’s to use the restroom. I figured it would be clean and nice. Wrong. What was I thinking? Since when would MacDonald’s be the pillar of clean and nice.
Bean and I walked in the restroom. One of the stalls had caution tape stretched across the door in a half ass cross. I could see that the floor was all tore up behind the door. Bean and I waited our turn when a grizzled skinny employee came out of one of the stalls hiking up her McDonald’s uniform pants. I said, “Had a little problem there, huh?” She said, “Sure did. There was a leak, and now it’s just a big hole.”
I should have known things were going to go awry after that. Not to mention that they were out of granola parfaits and tried to hoist cookies and apple pies on me instead which I did not want.
Everything seemed well and fine. The road was clear and beautiful. But then I noticed a couple of delicate white flakes hitting the windshield. I said, “Look! Snow!” Expecting it to be a mild flurry.
Well mild flurry rapidly turned into what I now refer to as Asteroid Snow Storm. The sky was pitch black. The snow was coming at us straight on at like a million flakes per second. It was totally disorienting, like we were driving through an asteroid storm. I couldn’t see the road. No one was in front of me to lead the way. You have to remember that I am from California. I have never driven through a snow storm in my life. Needless to say, I was SCARED SHITLESS, but I didn’t want to act it. I drove 30 mph with my hazard lights on. Every second felt like an eternity. Finally, a pickup truck passed me and led me through the storm. What a sigh of relief once it cleared.
When we arrived in Flagstaff, it was 30 degrees and clear. Before we went to our hotel, we took a walk through a Christmas light display. It was loads of fun, skipping down the paths and trying not to slip and break our faces on the ice.
Then we went to check into the hotel before heading to downtown Flagstaff. I couldn’t get the door open even though the little light turned green. I pushed and pushed, but the door would not budge. Finally I heaved my hip into it full blast and the door gave way. I looked down and noticed that the carpet was all tore up, but tried to play it off. I pretended not to notice the stained sheets. Bean and I put on festive holiday wear and headed downtown.
We were hungry and settled on a pizza place thinking that pizza should be relatively safe. WRONG. The pizza came out, and it basically looked like Sponge Bob diarrhea on a slab of raw dough. It was inedible. It was the first time in my life that I actually asked for a refund for an entire pizza.
I pointed to the pizza and said, “We can’t eat that.” The waitress asked, “What’s wrong with it?” I said, “Everything. I was expecting New York style pizza. That’s like a very bad accident.” She said, “People from New York say that our pizza is like New York pizza.” I say BULLSHIT. She gave us our money back.
We finally found really good Korean food except there was only one server who was deeply engaged in conversation with the only other customers, so it took us like two hours to get our food and eat it. By that time, it was about 19 degrees outside. We thought it best to get back to the hotel.
When we got back, the door was completely nonfunctional. It turns out that the entire lock system of the hotel was frozen, and they were asking the guests to CLIMB IN THROUGH THE FUCKING WINDOWS! I was like, “Don’t the windows have locks?” The woman said, “That is the good thing about the windows not having locks. Everyone can climb into their windows.” In fact, up and down the hotel, either doors were propped open or people were climbing in the windows.
Bean and I tried to laugh at this situation. She coined the hotel the Shia LaBeouf Hotel after one of the outrageous videos she found on the internet:
Click to viewWe attempted to make lemonade out of lemons by laughing about the Shia LaBoeuf Hotel while watching RETURN OF THE KING on my laptop. But come 1 a.m., the room didn’t seem friendly at all. We started noticing the holes in the walls. Come 2 a.m. we discovered dirty crusty washcloths in the shower. Come 3 a.m. kiddo was crying that she wanted to go home. Come 4 a.m. I was on the phone trying to find a new hotel. We checked into a Hilton at 5:30 in the morning. Jesus Fuck. I am still trying to deal with the original hotel for COMPENSATION MOTHERFUCKERS!
Thankfully Bean fell right to sleep in the comfy cozy Hilton. However, I have serious Hotel PTSD anyway. Having a bad PTSD experience with my 16 year old in tow upped the ante about a thousand fold. I was in Hyper Vigilante Mode to the max. I could not sleep. My heart was pounding, and I could not settle it down. I tried yoga. I tried mediation. I did all the right things. Eventually I just had to come to terms that I wasn’t going to sleep, but that we would have a great day the next day anyway, which we did.
We found a totally classic diner - the Galaxy Diner - on Route 66. It was awesome. It had not been renovated. The menu was still classic. It had the original booths and light fixtures. It was owned by the grandchildren of the original owners, and the walls were covered with photos of movie stars, including Bean’s favorites - Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn. We stuffed ourselves on pancakes and French toast, and we were happy girls.
Outside we could see the bright white tops of the San Francisco Peaks covered with the previous night’s snow. We decided to take a drive up to them.
The drive was BEAUTIFUL. My girl was BEAUTIFUL. The day was BEAUTIFUL. I took a bunch of amazing photos of my kiddo which I call her Snow Princess photos, though I also think the ones in her black hood are Wolf Princess photos because she has wolf eyes in them. We love wolves. Here is one, and there are many others below the cut:
After our time in the snow, we drove back to Tucson without incident. And now we have many more days of holiday goodness ahead of us. We’ve decided that we are going back to Flaggstaff after Christmas (if it snows) especially now that we know where to stay (and where not to!).
My time is up. There is a piece of my life. I’ll post more photos tomorrow, but right now I have to get back to work. I’ll stay in touch. I hope you all are enjoying the holidays as much as I am.
XO
KDD
PS: I apologies for any typos, but no time for editing and proofreading when doing 60 Minute Writing. Cheers!
