The last time we were here at the Group Home @ Houghton Lake was New Year’s weekend. I am not counting the time we dropped off the 1970s era boob tube and then continued on to Gaylord.

There is a certain freedom involved in losing your last parent. Maybe that doesn’t sound like a nice thing to say but it is a very real part of the whole experience, especially when you have spent the last year or whatever helplessly watching your parent’s quality of life deteriorate. Of course the corollary to this is the suddenly less hazy realization that you are next. Not that I’m planning on that next happening for a long time but still, waking up at that batscope hour of the night has taken on a whole new meaning. Today I looked at Twitter in the middle of a busy workday and a friend of mine (who *rarely* tweets) had tweeted: “Yowser! I just crossed a state line!” Does that sound exciting? Probably not, especially given that it was probably the Ohio state line. Nevertheless, a short but intense onslaught of emotions hit me. My friend has recently finished her own variation of the journey that the Commander and I took over the last year.

Like me, my friend has spent a lot of time this last year in her parents’ house, the house she grew up in. I know that she loves that house. I love The Commander’s house. It isn’t even the house I grew up in although it’s where I have visited my entire adult life and the only house the beach urchins remember. But after all these years, it isn’t home any more. Or not exactly. While I was staying there I was wishing with all my heart that Apple would make an iPhone apparation app so that I could apparate between my shabby but loverly old landfill and The Commander’s house or hoosegow room or wherever. Hmmm, maybe now that Steve Jobs is over there on the other side we’ll get one of those?

When I finally got to go home, I cried all the way through the Plum Market. I think I wrote about this a while back. My friend is on her way home now. I know how much she wants to be home in her own house doing her own familiar routines like walking to Trader Joe’s and the library and the neighborhood park. I didn’t have to cross any state lines when I went home but I know the feeling.

I don’t know if the earth’s oil light is on but the Frog Hopper’s oil light was on all the way up here. You are wondering something like, “Why the heck didn’t you pull over?” Because this particular oil light indicates that the oil level is low. There’s another oil light that means PULL OVER RIGHT NOW! And our oil level is not low. I made the GG check it before we got on the freeway. According to the boooook, the reason the light was on was because before we left, the vee-hickle was parked at a (barely perceptable) “slant” over at the Plum Market and THAT situation can apparently “fool” the vee-hickle’s “brain” into thinking that the oil level is low. Because the oil is sloshing around. This did not make any sense to me given the particular situation. I mean, parking in San Francisco maybe… Anyway, the way to make the blasted light go out is to idle a bit (like at a stoplight) after the engine warms up (there’s a little blue thermometer light that goes out when the engine is warmed up). I got onto the I75 SUV Speedway before either of those conditions were met and so I had to look at the blasted oil light all the way up. I was annoyed and I didn’t believe the nonsense about idling for a couple minutes or whatever. But guess what? When I pulled into the yard at the HL Group Home, I let the Frog Hopper idle for may be five seconds and yes, the blasted light went out!

Hee hee hee! Did any of this make any sense? I don’t care!

This entry was posted on Friday, April 6th, 2012 at 7:32 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.