I should be getting ready for Scotland, but the end of the school year is causing great excitement for my children and creating lots of extra work for me. In addition, it is bringing back a flood of memories from my school days:

With a grocery sack full of graded papers, notebooks barely holding together and dilapidated art projects, I bid fourth grade goodbye on the last day of school and headed home to pack for the next day’s trip to my grandmother’s house in North Carolina.  Including my new terry cloth shorts and three pairs of hip hugger, bell-bottom jeans, I sat on my suitcase to close it before its discounted ride on Braniff Airlines. In 1976, it was my third summer to fly alone across the country, and I felt not a trace of anxiety as my mother waved goodbye with her heavily jeweled hand that was punctuated with red plastic fingernails.

Two thousand miles away from Texas and the reality of my everyday life, there was ample space to weave a web of lies and create an image that eventually became my new real life. Sitting at my mother’s childhood dressing table I actively ignored my grandmother’s disapproving stare as she stood in the doorway watching me use her first generation hand-held hairdryer.  It was just last summer she had pointed me outside to sit on the terrace and dry my hair in the sun while drinking homemade plum juice.

This summer was different, I owned a purse made from a pair of blue jeans, and in that purse I carried a big comb and several glass bottles of flavored lip-gloss.  No longer was life organic for me – no chemically untouched skin or sun dried hair—it was Final Net, Nair and Lemon Up for me.

The previous summer I had arrived in North Carolina to a comment from my favorite boy cousin, “You look different with glasses and braces,” and this year I was determined not only to flaunt my bicentennial quarter collection, but also my blue tinted contact lenses and coveted Yo-Yo shoes –remember, the ones with the hole in the sole?

As a customary first duty of my summer arrival, my cousin called his neighbor, Earl, and the three of us raced to the stream in the back pasture to check on our six-pack of Schlitz Malt Liquor.  Years before we reasoned that the coolness of the stream stored the beer at the perfect drinking temperature in anticipation of the day we would actually drink it.  Wading across the shallow water, we identify our tree, grab the rope and pull our dulled gold six-pack out of the creek.

Little boys. Well, they were three years older than me, but little did they know that the beer would set the tone for the summer and by August when I turned eleven, I would surpass their level of social sophistication. Even today, when I hear Billy Joel’s song “Sometimes A Fantasy” from the Glass Houses album, I feel Earl’s sister, Emily, grinding the gears of her Jeep Renegade and prematurely driving me into the land of teenagers.

The summer of 1976 Emily helped me move past the ten- and eleven-year old boys and altogether skip the twelve and thirteen year old boys to meet a new breed – the sixteen-year old boy.  Emily inherited her older brother’s Jeep, and with her long blonde hair and sharp-cut bangs, she was not exactly my friend because she was in high school, but since she could not be seen driving alone and needed somebody to occupy the other seat, I served as her silent companion.  When she opened her treasure trove of eye shadow and assorted Maybelline products I looked a few years older than my almost eleven, especially with a bright yellow tube top, white shorts and my never-before-seen Yo-Yo’s imported from suburban Houston to rural North Carolina.

In the passenger seat, I clung to a piece of metal, as there was no door or seatbelt to hold me in the Jeep when Emily popped the clutch and the Jeep jumped all the way up the steep incline of her driveway.  On the street Emily’s shoulders hunched as she held the steering wheel and fanned her wet fingernails. Giving me a look of manufactured sultriness mixed with determination, she ceremoniously pushed the Glass Houses 8-track tape into the player.  The first part of the song is quiet with the sounds of telephone buttons being pushed, then a phone rings, and the sound of canned drums with a vocal overlay sings, “I didn’t want to do it, but I got too lonely…”

The residents of the tiny town I visited each summer liked to claim the Andy Griffith show was modeled after their old-fashioned town where neighbors knew each other’s business. The handful of teenagers drove to the next town – otherwise known as “uptown” — about ten miles away, population 8,000, to socialize.  The social activity consisted of parking muddy trucks on a vacant lot and sitting on tailgates drinking beer.

To me, Emily’s fair freckled face was the prettiest of the western-clad girls prancing about the 4-wheel drive trucks with their gun racks on display, but the young bearded men dressed in hunting attire apparently did not find Emily’s look appealing – either that or they saw her crazy gene popping out. Sitting on the tailgate swilling Pabst Blue Ribbon, the country boys whistled and heaped attention upon my butchy cousin, Susan, a local horse-breaking hero, and girl who could be counted upon to pull her weight and use good sense in running a household and a farm.  Emily’s flibbertigibbet personality must have been seen as a liability for long-term commitment.

Despite Emily’s perfectly polished cinnamon fingernails and generous birthing hips the boys opted to pass on her offerings.  Not having the insight to know that this early male rejection would catapult her into a life of trading her body to a low class rural male (the ones who carry pistols instead of rifles) in chase of the white powder, I assumed Emily to be a magnificent creature like Tatum O’Neal – a girl too good to be my role model. My cousin, with her unattainable competence in all matters equestrian was also too exceptional to be my model. In contrast, Valerie Bertinelli and Kristy McNichols with their chatty and outward vulnerability proved perfect patterns for a girl like me.

Safety in numbers is what they say, and finding a similar companion made my path easier to forge. Debbie Webb, the Baptist preacher’s daughter, had silky dark hair like Valerie Bertinelli, but it was short like Kristy McNichol’s hair. My grandmother, a pale but sturdy flower planted in a rocky field, clung to the Bible and her preacher.  No matter that Debbie was a young sexual pervert; my grandmother could not ship me off to the preacher’s house fast enough.

The parsonage sat just down the hill from the red brick church with the tall white steeple – close enough to visit during Sunday school class when one was supposed to be taking the collection to the church office.  On Sunday mornings, the parsonage was wrecked with the fallout of four teenage girls getting dressed to be on parade for the congregation.  With Debbie in the lead we raced into the preacher’s bedroom, opened the top drawer that contained the preacher’s wife’s underwear and began plundering Mrs. Webb’s worn copy of the Joy of Sex.

Debbie’s barrage of leading observations and wanton questions would not register with me until twenty years later.  The way she fondled the silk strings on my peasant skirt or told me stories about her baby sister peeing on her boyfriend never engaged me like I think was Debbie’s intent.   I saw Debbie as the relaxed sister who patiently waited for all good things to come to her – unlike her older sister who tirelessly worked to receive the attentions of the visiting Senator’s son (the same boy I would re-meet ten years later at a fraternity party in another state and with whom I would spend four lost days in the Blue Ridge mountains.)

The truth of Dangerous Debbie was evident to me, the budding fifth grader, but to my grandmother she was not only the preacher’s daughter, but she was a year older than me, which meant she was a year wiser.  For these reasons, my grandmother invited Debbie to be our guest for a week at the beach, and because of these same reasons, my grandmother was surprised by Debbie’s constant badgering to be released into the wild party scene of Mrytle Beach.  Not until Debbie presented herself covered in hickeys did my grandmother reconsider Debbie’s piousness.   My grandmother, of course, was not privy to the fact that Debbie inflicted the hickeys onto herself.  Constantly sucking her arms, poor Debbie understood how hickeys were given, but obviously missed the point that boys probably didn’t suck on girls’ biceps.

If the beach trip wasn’t the last nail in the coffin of our friendship, the Hamster Incident definitely was.   Because the Webb’s were religious royalty and the community knew them to be wise and right, Debbie was given the special privilege of hosting her classroom hamster for the summer.

Busy dancing to Paul McCartney’s “Silly Love Songs” in her den, Debbie and I were having the greatest time … until she brought out the hamster.  Cuddling the hamster in her palm, Debbie readied the little fur ball for a trip both high and far. Gently at first, Debbie tossed the tiny guy skyward until he barely met the 1970’s popcorn ceiling.  Paul sang louder and louder and the hamster banged harder and harder against the ceiling.  Instead of helping the rodent, I rolled in a fit of giggles on the beanbag chair.

Debbie was so funny. She looked at me with her beguiling and manipulative deep brown eyes and feathered hair. My turn to toss the hamster. Honestly, I was content watching Debbie torture the living creature and didn’t need a turn, but just like when Debbie conned me into showing her how I imagined Peanut Hinson would kiss, I did it.

Just as I tossed the pet and he went SPLAT against the ceiling, I noticed Debbie was sitting like a saint on the couch. Turning to see for whom she was posing I met eyes with Preacher Webb who was standing in the doorway and had just witnessed me throwing a live animal against the ceiling.   Needless to say, there was a lecture, a call to my grandmother and reduced playtime with Debbie.  It turned out to be a blessing. Debbie = trouble.

Are lesbians happier than heterosexual women — maybe not happier, but at least more honest, genuine or emotionally healthy? That question crossed my mind as I milled about a crowd of same-sex couples at an Indigo Girls concert (of course.) Swaying to the harmonized voices of Amy and Emily as they sang about justice and spirituality, I couldn’t help but compare two couples in front of me: one hetero and one homo.

A springtime Texas night under a grove of live oak trees with an unending supply of Shiner Bock beer, a young woman tossed her flowing blonde hair and stood with her weight on one foot while leaning into her boyfriend (maybe husband) for support.  The man’s face pointed toward the girl’s ear, as a result his gaze was perpendicular to the stage in what appeared an uninterested manner. Flipping her hair and trying to engage the guy, the girl sang parts of songs, but never seemed to capture the attention of his squinted eyes that belied self-consciousness as he rubbed his muscled arms in a pitiable attempt to comfort himself.

Quite opposite of the girl who, literally, could not stand on her own two feet and had to balance on one foot while leaning against a man for support, two other women stole my attention. Golf visors pushing back naturally highlighted hair, these girls, attired in brand specific golf wear, stood in contrast to the delicate girl as they put equal weight on both feet – no balancing on one foot. Sturdy, steady and not swaying, Sporty Spices laughed and held their longneck beers with two fingers and a thumb around the mouth of the bottle. There was no ambivalence or dainty four-fingered hold on the beer’s neck; these women used the bottle as a vessel for holding beer, not an instrument with a sticky label that needed to be peeled, or a burden to be held by the boyfriend, or even a prop used to emphasize flirtations.

There was also the part where Tall Sporty Spice stood behind Short Sporty Spice with arms wrapped around Shorty’s bulging belly.  Short SS didn’t seem to cringe or suck-in her gut when Tall SS grabbed her fat roll.  As if that touching was not honest enough, Short SS moves behind Tall SS and performs the standard-issue concert-watching waist-hug-sway, not even caring that she’s breaking the rule that the tall person is always in the back. Hetero girls consciously avoid relationships with boys shorter than themselves because of this very situation. Apparently, it’s not an issue in homo world.  Stand on your feet, drink your beer and date short or tall people? How uncomplicated.

Knowing at least two Scotch Straight Up readers who are lesbians, what’s your take on this?  Guess you can’t imagine all the machinations that hetero women unconsciously perform in relationships with men – feigning interest in sports, turning your best side toward him, laying flat on a bed (with a fan on to encourage the look that you are interested), wearing painful shoes, minimizing needs, excessive dermatological visits, excruciating Brazilian waxes, ignoring the occasional patronizing comment, fawning over a receding hairline like it’s cute, taking small bites of food, constantly applying lipgloss…

Aren’t lesbians exempt from all this fraud?  Tell me it’s so. Is the grass greener, or do you just avoid mowing it?

pho2526

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This morning I passed a guy with a cardboard sign saying:

There is a difference between being lazy and hating work.

What was his point?

(I was too embarrassed to snap his photo, but if you live in Austin, go by the old Tower Records on The Drag and look for him.)

Already I’m having a difficult time posting on a daily basis. Surely, the boss of this blog is going to fire me. Is this trip really happening? Have I done one thing to plan two months away from my life with little children in tow? Well, yes, but with two weeks left before we depart it’s looking a bit precarious.

Today, I have done one thing related to the trip and I want you to take a note. Surely, you already know, but if you are living in a dark closet like me, you may not be a regular Skype user. We need to be in contact with our college-aged daughter who will be living alone at our house and going to school and working (yes, we are stupid) and Skype seems to be the answer. International calls are ridiculously expensive and Skype seems to be the way to go.

Now that I Skype, I may not be able to quit. In fact, I want to Skype all day, every day. All the businesses in Scotland with whom I want to Skype are closed, but at the crack of dawn, I’m waking up to Skype them. Mostly, I just like saying SKYPE!

(Wonder why these people don’t like Skype?)

It would be difficult for European trains and schedules to be more confusing to me.  Let’s start with the premise that American airline arrangements throw my little mind into convulsions and bring the world to a halt as I obsessively compare flight times and costs, and I know all the in’s and outs.  If nothing, my personal philosophy is to get the maximum for the minimum. The Husband does not share this need for economy and frequently goes behind my back in an effort to complete a travel reservation in less than fifteen hours.  The pain I feel when he pays full price and books a flight with two connections is unbearable. This is why I have a new Travel Husband, officially known as the “Man in Seat Sixty-One“.

The Man in Seat Sixty-One has a jaunty mustache and goatee and looks to be the kind of person for whom witty repartee is second nature. However, from our email exchanges, it is clear he is singularly focused on worldwide train travel. Let me emphatically tell you, the Man in Seat Sixty-One does not disappoint. He knows his business.  In fact, the Man in Seat Sixty-One saved me hundreds, if not thousands of dollars…or pounds or Euros or whatever.

Like every good American who learned on their first European trip after high school, you gotta get a Eurail Pass.  Of course, I did not learn about the Eurail Pass that hot summer of 1985 after I graduated because I spent those days in a department store hiding behind two-way mirrors looking for shoplifters, BUT I did go to an uppity east coast college where fellow students dropped “Eurail Pass” into conversations in the same way they flaunted old ski lift tickets hanging from their coats.

Here is the deal (pickle), the Man in Seat Sixty-One laughs at the Americans who buy Eurail Passes.  Listen to what he says:

“You should always assume that point-to-point tickets will be cheaper than a railpass, unless you can show otherwise.  Many overseas visitors, especially (if you’ll forgive me for saying so) Americans, appear genetically programmed to ask for a $500 Eurail pass just for one or two $50 train rides.  Boy-oh-boy is rail pass marketing good in the States!”

I was all set to buy four Eurail Passes for $675 each that got me only ten days of travel within two months. The Man in Seat Sixty-One, whose real name is Mark Smith, set me straight. Instead of spending $2,700 on Eurail Passes, I bought four tickets for my first trip for a bit over $50.  My total train travel bill is going to be FAR less than four Eurail Passes. (I’m thinking of inviting Mark for some haggis to celebrate the savings.)

Not only has the Man in Seat Sixty-One saved me cash-ola, he’s significantly boosted the quality of our train trips. For instance, at one point we will be traveling from the Highlands down to London, and instead of spending eleven hours wrestling small children into sitting in their seats, The Man pointed me to the Caledonian Sleeper train.  How exciting will it be to have two interlocking rooms, each with two sleeping berths, to contain the children and entertain the husband? Talk about killing two birds with one stone — we’re sleeping, eating, traveling and frolicking at the same time for ONE COST. Happiness oozes on to me as I think of the efficiency and economy. The Man in Seat Sixty-One tells me:
“(The Caldonian Sleeper) beds come with a fluffy duvet, fresh clean sheets & plump pillows.  A complimentary toiletries pack contains soap, flannel, toothbrush, toothpaste & razor, and a small bottle of mineral water is provided for each passenger.  A light breakfast with tea or coffee & fruit juice is included in the fare, served by your steward in your compartment at the time you specify.  There are toilets at the end of the corridor in each sleeping-car (which can be used even when the train is at a station), and there’s a lounge car with leather sofas, tables & chairs and steward service of wine, beer, spirits, soft drinks & light meals.  The Caledonian Sleepers offer almost ‘cruise train’ facilities, indeed they are the only regular trains in Britain featuring leather sofas, complete with coffee tables & table lamps.”

Once I figure out what to do with the flannel, I’ll be all set.  Any thoughts on what the heck Mark means by flannel? I know the flannel pajamas that are advertised in Lands End and sold to the people who live in cold places, and then there are the flannel shirts that one steals from a college boy’s dorm rooms, but just “flannel”??  Ya think it’s a robe? The train company wouldn’t give-a-way flannel robes, would they? Surely they wouldn’t be reused robes worn by many another train traveler..ick!  Please let me know if you have any ideas on flannel.

The skinny is that the Man in Seat Sixty-One is a career railwayman who knows everything there is to know about train travel. His site is great and has been infinitely helpful, but I ordered his book too, just to have it all in print.   If I were The Man’s publicist I would spank him for hiding the book way, way, way in depths of his website. Then, I would spank him again for giving only the Amazon UK link to order the book because Amazon UK refuses to ship to an American address. No matter, I really wanted that book and refused to believe it couldn’t be shipped to Texas.  I found that regular Amazon.com has copies, but don’t type Man in Seat Sixty-One because you won’t find it that way. You must type The Man in Seat 61 (use numerical 61).

(I’m going to volunteer to be The Man’s American publicist!)

Welcome to the first itty-bitty entry of this yet unnamed website. Today is the day for brainstorming site names and already a tone has been set that positions me as an insensitive pop-cultured American juxtaposed against my academic and mindful spouse.  The idea for the blog is to chronicle our 2009 summer vacation in the United Kingdom, and my blog name suggestions revolved around the word PLAID since most of our time will be spent in Scotland.  To me, Scotland = Plaid, right? In casual conversation I mentioned to my husband, the Scotland expert, several clever site names all involving the word PLAID.  Smashing my fun, he corrected me that plaid is an American entity and surely, it is TARTAN that I mean.

Tartan, aside from its distant kinship to tart, (not as in pastry) just doesn’t seem like a very fun word. Plaid, on the other hand, evokes a big bad party. Just like my life, I can tell this trip is going to be more tartan than plaid.  In all honesty, I’m just a plaid talker who lives a Spartan tartan life.

Writing a summer blog makes me excited and at the same time a little anxious. Since the sudden death of my former blog I’ve missed meeting a daily deadline (even though it was imaginary), whipping-up an interesting post and watching the audience numbers grow. Those many and varied readers are what makes me nervous. While my tracking meter showed how many people read the blog, it didn’t disclose the reader’s identity, and this made for perfect paranoia.  If I wrote about you and then saw you at a party, how awkward, huh?  Did you recognize yourself in the blog? It was when my husband’s business acquaintance mentioned reading a blog post that I knew it was time to kill the site –that very minute.

I’ll try to be nice and accurate when reporting on our British travels and definitely not slam the Scots like I did the Mexicans back in 2007.  The lack of oppressive heat should work in favor of the UK. Honestly, I’m thrilled about the upcoming trip. To get you familiar with what to expect, here is an overview of the itinerary:

June 14-June 23 Scottish Highlands – think lonesome and desolate, and the Loch Ness Monster, of course. If the love of Scotch doesn’t overcome me, we’ll try to see:

•    Inverness (river walks, ghost tours, cruise)
•    Culloden Battlefield, Fort George and Narin
•    Strathglass & Glen Affric, Loch Ness, Fort Augustus
•    Aviemore, Loch Morlich, Cairngorm (the funicular), Glen Feshie Park
•    Glen Coe, Fort William
•    Kingussie
•    Strathpeffer, Lairg (the salmon will be swimming upstream like in my junior high school textbook), Lybster

If you know this area and have better suggestions, please feel free to give us your advice and counsel.

June 23-July 4 London and the surrounding countryside from the base of a museum director’s antique filled London home. (Don’t worry. We are taping the children’s hands together for the entirety of our stay).  The house is a 7-minute walk to an overland rail connection and the Tube.  The neighborhood is “typical south London, a great mixture of Victorian and 1960s brick flats… there are local restaurants that are very good, and a nice couple of pubs – all within 5 min walk, along with local grocery shops.”

The children are keen to see the London Dungeon, Queen’s castle, guards and all the typical sites. More than likely we’ll drag out to the Cotswolds and see Bathe, Stratford-Upon-Avon, Leeds castle and other touristy sites.  This won’t be a very adventuresome part of the trip (like any part of the UK is untapped and holds sights unseen), but the twist will be London seen through the eyes of our children.  (Yawn. I know that sounds boring and trite but have I ever given you boring?)

July 4-August 1, Edinburgh We have rented a seven-bedroom apartment in Edinburgh that belongs to a persnickety professor. We’re accepting visitors, so please mark your calendars. This is the part of the trip where my husband will start working and I’ll be left to entertain the children.  The husband is researching some part of Scottish history that compels him to travel to small towns in search of. …well, of something. Honestly, I am unsure exactly what he is writing, but certainly it’s important and you will want to read it upon completion.

August 1-15, Eastern Scottish coast where we will exchange homes with a real live Scottish family. While we get the keys to their minivan and house, the Scottish family will pack their bright white baby and three other children and make their way to our house in Austin, Texas. The mother of this family is a writer – maybe she’ll write awful things about our house and detail what she finds in our drawers. So many questions float through my mind as to how this will turn out.  My mother says, “This is the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”  She’s so unadventurous, which is why she is staying in Texas!