The New House Across the Road

Don't look for the above "Music I'm Listening To:" to load on your I-Pod. That's not a singing group or the name of a song. That's what's making all the noise across the road from our second place on Whidbey Island.

I should explain that we have - for almost 6 years - had an unimpeded view up here, a view that includes Crockett Lake and Fort Casey, the Keystone Ferry dock, and in the distance, Port Townsend, the Straits of Juan de Fuca, and the northernmost Olympic Mountains. And all that we had between us and that view were 9 vacant lots on a slope covered with low brush and grasses that were perfect for rabbits and quail.

Well, I hope the critters headed for high ground, because our little patch of heaven is being invaded. Six of the lots are being shaved and scraped for - as the owner put it to us yesterday - the "house of our dreams".

She got out of the car as we were painting our deck and looked at the growing hole and the mounds of dirt that had been pushed around and turned to us and said, wide-eyed: "Wow. This is scary. We've never done anything like this before."

I replied: "Wow. This is scary for us, too, but for different reasons." I mentioned that we'd heard that the house would be large. I asked "Large like wide? Or large like tall?"

Unfortunately, "tall" was her answer.

We surveryed the lots last night after the workers had left and tried to surmise just how big, how high, how intrusive this new house would be, and tried to look at the bright side (they had cleared a few more trees, improving the view) but couldn't see to get past the fact that - no matter how kind they were in their house design - our view would be compromised.

And I'm guessing that we have no rules at Admiral's Cove about construction on the weekends, because I can hear them at it again, and when I glance over there and down the hill, I can see the arm and scoop of an end-loader, looking like a giant, orange prehistoric beast as it eats its Saturday breakfast and spits it out for the little bulldozer puttering around beneath it.

Ah, well. There's nothing to be done for this.

Except to go over every night and refill the hole.

Pitched a Book Yesterday

For those of you unfamiliar with "pitching a book," I'll tell you that it does not mean picking one up and heaving it across the room, although it can sometimes leave you feeling like you'd like to pick up a book and heave it across the room.

Book pitches most often occur at writer's conferences, and I attended one this weekend. Generally you get 10 minutes to pitch the book you have either already written (fiction) or plan to write (non-fiction). You sign up for the appropriate agents and editors based upon what you find out about them and who/what they like to represent on their company websites. And then you stand around with a bunch of people who are also pitching books, looking pale and wan and fidgeting, licking their lips, clearing their throats, shuffling paper, etc.

I looked no different. I attempted a nonchalance that I didn't feel, propping my elbow on the pay phone ledge as if it was a bar. And I wish it had been a bar. A quick beer would have been great.

Anyhow, these pitches were running about a quarter of an hour late, and after a time I was ushered into Waiting Space Number 2. I could see the layout from there, and at least there was some privacy. I'd pitched in a high school classroom with no place to hide, where 5 or 6 other people were pitching at the same time. But this was a large room that had been separated into little curtained spaces with a table behind which the agent/editor sat, and a chair where we would all eventually plop our excited and nervous butts.

As a fallen Catholic, I must say that they looked a little too much like confessionals to me ...

Anyhow, I pitched to a nice agent lady who agreed to take a look at it, and I confessed to her that although I had made my living pitching paper and managing people who sell paper, and marketing, that selling my writing was like starting anew. Listening to me or watching me, you would have never known that I'd spent twenty years of my life negotiating, ingratiating, presenting, placating, apologizing, confirming, justifying, and convincing, all with a big smile on my face. During a book pitch, time stands still. So does my brain. And I must come off about as polished as a sandpaper floor.

Oh, well. Since she said she'd take a look at it, it doesn't matter how bad I was.

Wish me luck!  

 

Roadside Attractions

When I saw the AOL article today - America's Quirkiest Roadside Attractions - I was reminded again of my youth and of our cross-country car camping trips.

Wouldn't I have loved to stop at some of these places! The only spot on this list that my mother deemed worthy was the Royal Gorge bridge. And "stop" is a misnomer, given that we sped right over it.

We couldn't just stop for any old thing. A stop had to have a good and rational reason, i.e.:

>Potty Breaks;

>Gas fill-ups, which would be lumped in with the Potty Break category. And forget stopping for food at a gas station. Gas stations were for gas and for bathrooms and for having a gas station employee clean the entomological gold mine off the windshield. And back in that day, the only food that gas stations sold anyway were small bags of stale peanuts that hung on black wire frames by the till or came from stippled green dispensing machines with big mirrors on them.

>Something historical, which often meant places with "State Park" or "National Park" in the name. Huge timber lodges and mountain roads built by the Civilian Conservation Corp were always stop-worthy because there were lessons to be taught there: What was the CCC? Why did it exist? Who was Roosevelt? 

This Stopping Phylum also included historical markers on the highway - all two-laners back then - that noted some special local occasion, like the brutal massacre of everyone in a wagon train or the massive loss of life in a flash flood or fire, always great things for small children to read and consider before settling down for the night in a flimsy canvas tent.

>Something visually stunning. (See Royal Gorge, above.) This folded in nicely with the State and National Park stop, and included Garden of the Gods and Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park. If you were lucky, you could kill both two birds with one stone. Mesa Verde: visually stunning and historical.

But the Wall Drugs and two-headed snakes and mystery houses were not on our stopping list. In my mother's mind(and although she did not usually drive during these trips - my father did - she held the Stop or Go trump cards) these were tourist traps, a waste of time and good money.

Well of course they were! That's what made them so appealing!

So across the countryside we sped, passing UFO landing sites and giant ant farms, wistfully watching their signs recede behind us as we ate our homemade sandwiches and apples (kept you regular on the road, Mother reminded us) and soaking up the perpetual history lessons coming from the front seat.

And to this day, I've yet to see a two-headed snake.