For Frying Out Loud

by Fay Jacobs

  DAY THREE

  Lessons: 1. Put Tracker emergency brake on before unhooking to avoid a Bonnie sandwich between car and camper. 2. Keep pliers handy at all times. 3. If you are in the car everything you need is in the camper, or vice versa.

  In Salem we saw the Witch House. When they talk about the trials they use it to teach tolerance, including LGBT issues. Yay! In Bah Hahbah we went to our first lobstah pound. Messy, very messy, but good, like a lot of things.

  Learned the East Coast’s first tourists were called rusticators for the rustic conditions they endured…we are just masticators for all the chewing we are doing.

  As RV newbies we don’t know where to stow everything. After three days this place looks like a reality TV hoarder episode. And don’t even talk to me about the “spaghetti” of wires from laptop, phone charger, iPod, camera charger, oy! I think we are mussticators, not just rusticators.

  Tomorrow we are off to Canada, eh, where we are considered official spouses. Unless we consider divorce after trying to hook-up, unhook, level, stow, or otherwise fiddle with all the gear and systems in our traveling circus.

  DAY FIVE

  Left as early as possible considering all the detaching and complete undoing required. I stand around holding the bag with the pins and chocks and pliers, etc. That’s me, left holding the bag. Funny, it’s just like my job of being ballast on a boat. Same day, different menial job.

  At the border we got the once-over by Canadian feds – they said it was random, but I’m wondering what’s in my Homeland Security file. The authorities rifled through everything in the cabin so the place still looks like a rummage sale and further contributed to our messticator status.

  Driving through New Brunswick, CA we detoured for construction on Crotch Hill Road (really) along the Bay of Fundy and our GPS (The Bitch on the Dashboard) had a meltdown, sending us the wrong way. Almost caught sunrise at Campobello by mistake. Had lunch in St. Stephens, New Brunswick, the Chocolate Capital of Canada. We sampled, of course.

  In St. John, we saw the reverse waterfall…a small falls, where the tidal change comes in and makes it look like the falls runs up. Well, sort of. If you lived in St. John the small ripple would be your big tourist attraction, too.

  By the way, the imagined romantic campsite is just a big gravel and crabgrass parking lot. We are side by side by side with dozens of rigs, packed together sardine-style. But after the exhausting day of travel – okay, Bonnie is exhausted, I’m just covered in black and blue paw prints on my thighs from Paddy sitting on my lap and fidgeting for 7 hours. But the GPS conveniently found the liquor store and we are having cocktails inside the RV where it’s beautiful.

  And if anybody knows where I can get those lights airport workers use to direct airplanes into the gates, please advise.

  DAY SEVEN

  Headed for the Bay of Fundy and stopped for homemade blueberry ice-cream – it turned out to be $6 for a cone! Good, but single scoop. We did get another scoop, though. The ice-cream crook told us to see St. Martins, a fishing Village with impressive scenery on the Bay of Fundy. I consider the stop six dollars each for tourism advice and a free cone.

  The ice-cream Nazi was right. We walked the huge area filled with millions of stones at low tide, and saw giant fishing boats grounded, two stories down from the docks. Bonnie took off her shoes and waded across to some caves, carved by the tides and we both laughed at her navigating her way back over very slippery stones.

  Then just hung around waiting for the tide to come back in. I don’t think this is what they mean by tidal bore, but…it was like watching paint dry. Then again, like paint, dramatic when done. Had a chowdah suppah while sittin’ on the dock of the bay, watching the tide…etc…then, with the car perched on a hill, overlooking the Bay, Schnauzers on our laps, we watched the water return. Peaceful, beautiful, relaxing.

  Now working on the book again. Quiet in the RV and a great way to get away from distractions, like blueberry ice cream.

  Another lesson. Quiet hours at campsites are generally 10pm-7am. Those hours are not the best time to learn that you have to unlock the cabin of the RV with the key before you open the side door or the alarm will go off. And it’s one of those honkin’, squeelin’, flashin’, effin’ car alarms you want to rip from the dashboard. See how the lesbians win friends and influence people….

  DAY NINE

  Off to Nova Scotia. Bonnie spent time unhooking the rig and sewer; I hid inside….

  Drove and drove past expanses of absolutely nothing dotted by farms, lakes and additional nothing. Green, pretty. Very few houses and people. Kept driving. Fay and Bonnie went to Nova Scotia and all I got were these lousy hemorrhoids.

  Arrived in Halifax for the Pride Parade. Huge! Everyone seemed to come out, if you’ll excuse the expression, to watch – gay, straight, families with kids, gay police, firefighters, drag queens, very, very, very cool. The theme was Free to Be…and it sure looks like you are that in Halifax. Hah! I’ve been carded twice this week: once for my Senior Pass to our National Parks and once to get into a gay bar. Irony?

  We arrived in tiny Hubbards, NS, set up the RV at the campsite/parking lot, walked the pups to the nearby beach and dined at the Shore Club (since 1946) for one of their famous lobster dinners. The place was a throwback; I expected the Andrews Sisters to pop up any second.

  Okay, Nova Scotia is spectacular. We took a drive this morning in part overcast, part drizzle via the Lighthouse Trail along the shore, where the most stunning sight was Peggy’s Cove lighthouse atop the incredible outcropping of boulders, nestled in fog and hauntingly beautiful. Reflections and light made for great photos.

  Later, we toured Lunenburg and Mahone Bay, lovely, architecturally gorgeous small fishing villages and Blue Rock, a tiny cove that seemed the epitome of the Nova Scotia coast, right down to the lobster traps, colorful buoys, work boats and fishing sheds. Lest I have my city-gal card revoked completely, Bonnie and I donned terminally wrinkled outfits and dined at Fleur de Sel in Lunenburg, one of Canada’s top restaurants. Incredible meal, rivaling NY or Paris. The staff was polite enough to ignore the Beverly Hillbillies clothes.

  Tonight we “stayed home” for the evening, dining on fish and chips from a stand at the campground – where, although there are empty sites all over, management managed to sandwich us between two families of tenters with small noisy children. This caused small noisy dogs. Oh good, here comes quiet hour and we’re in the middle of the reign of terrier. Wish I had a tranquilizer gun. Bribery by doggie biscuit will have to suffice.

  DAY WHATEVER

  Yeah, just one ugly vista after another here…boats and lighthouses and fishing shacks and….

  DAY AFTER WHATEVER

  Drove to our campground in Cape Breton. They must be into S&M here because they gave us a ski slope camp site. I put the level on the counter and couldn’t find the bubble. We broke out the wood chocks (how much wood could a wood chock chock if a…), put them under the left side tires and backed up onto them. After several tries (“back up, no, go forward, STOP, you’re not back far enough, oh, shit”) we went inside for martinis. It was like cocktails on the Titanic. Darn, we had to have chowder, clams and mussels again tonight. This writer’s life is tough.

  SOMETIME IN JULY THE CAPE BRETON ROLLER COASTER

  Drove the famous 8-hour Cabot trail loop, Schnauzers in the back seat (Dog is my co-pilot). Once again, crummy weather, with fog and drizzle. While photo ops suffered, we loved the roller coaster ride along the very edge of the sea, up high in the mountains, then plunging to incredible valleys, twisting, turning on the narrow road, overlooking spectacular cliffs and mountain ranges, fishing villages, seafood restaurants and pottery, glass, leather, basket weaving and tchotchke artisans. Amazing vistas I cannot even attempt to describe. See it someday if you can.

  As for RV life, I’m loving it. Bonnie was terrified I’d spook at some point and demand to be taken to a Holiday Inn Express. No such thing. The book is going well, and I adore w
orking in the RV. At a certain point we stopped caring if our clothes matched and started to look like vagrants. Will work for lobster.

  THE NEXT DAY

  Moxie, Paddy and I watched Bonnie do all that butch stuff on this morning, getting the rig ready to head out. Just as we started to roll along a cabinet in the RV opened and I went to the back to close it. That’s when we hit the pothole and I went flying into the wall. I feel like I’ve been knee-capped by the Sopranos. And with a bulging bruise on my head, if I was a quarterback I’d be benched. In fact, much like my former boating days, bruises are us. From now on I try to stay put in the shotgun seat while moving.

  WILD MOOSE CHASE

  What the heck did we do to piss off Mother Nature? Drizzle and fog again. If Bonnie hadn’t worn a Gorton’s Yellow slicker I would have lost her entirely.

  Spent the morning in Louisbourg at a meticulously recreated 18th century fortress. Purportedly, the fortress was surrounded on three sides by ocean, but you could have fooled us. Okay, sometimes I heard waves.

  But the historic site, complete with re-enactors, cannon blasts, and a working bakery and farm, was mercifully free of crass commercialism and we really enjoyed the exhibits. On the way back to the campsite we drove two more hours on that damn Cabot trail and still no moose sightings, despite Moose Crossing signs everywhere. If the moose is loose, where is he?

  We headed to dinner at a local Distillery and Inn when GPS bitch told us to turn left onto a skinny unpaved road. I said “no,” but my adventurous mate overruled me. First it was gravel, then dirt, then mud with grass growing between tire tracks, then muddy ruts, deep puddles, and finally massive axle-threatening sink holes. Dark forest beckoned on either side, no signs of life, moose or otherwise, as we bucked forward, deeper and deeper into the mire. I panicked. No bars on the cell phone. We’ll get stuck, blow a tire! It’s getting dark, My God, all they’ll find of us will be bones and golf clubs. Turn around! Turn around!

  Bonnie, of course was not rattled. Then the dashboard moron said “Continue 11 miles.” Hell, twenty minutes into this mess we’d only gone a mile and a half. Whether it was 11 more or 40, the outcome seemed identical – they’d find us sometime in April.

  Finally, Bonnie agreed to u-turn (no easy task) and we retreated, our teeth and the car’s chassis ratting as we bounced and banged and crept our way back to the main road. The only sign we saw on the way said SLOW. We howled. And when we got to the distillery, we partook.

  And of course, do you think we saw any moose?

  AUGUST 1

  We arrived in Truro, NS, mid-province, last night, staying at the nicest campground yet, with actual trees between campsites. Downtown wasn’t much except some nicely restored homes and more than a dozen cool wooden sculptures carved from the remains of trees which succumbed to Dutch Elm Disease. Lemonade from lemons.

  Passed through Bible Hill, NS and I loved their town branding: Bible Hill – a progressive community. Given the name of the town, I guess they had to go with something like that. Glad tourism there isn’t my job.

  This morning we dined at Sugar Moon Maple Farm, a cute little restaurant at the end of a long winding dirt road, where we were greeted by a rainbow sticker on the door, friendly staff and a table full of women of a certain age breakfasting there as well. We’d found our people. Had terrific pancakes with freshly made maple syrup, maple sausage, maple baked beans and maple whipped cream atop coffee. We’re lucky that Paddy is still the only one in the family with diabetes.

  Baked beans for breakfast. I’m feeling a little Paul Bunyanish.

  And then, after breakfast we saw the moose. Sadly it was in a nature preserve Bonnie dragged me to because she was sick of my anguish over herds of missing moose. There, in a large field was a big old moose with his lovely moose wife. What a rack, as they say – on him, not her. And Mr. Moose came right up to me, stared me in the eye and…sneezed. God bless him, the big brown beast. I can leave Canada tomorrow a happy camper, having seen my chocolate moose.

  TUESDAY, AUGUST 2, PERHAPS

  Made the long drive yesterday back across the boring highway in Nova Scotia to New Brunswick, got to see the reversing falls for a second time (woo-hoo) and crossed back into the U.S. to Calais, ME. Situated near the border of a bilingual country, I assumed the name of the city was pronounced a la francais (Ca-lay), but no, it is pronounced like what happens to your hands when you do too much manual labor, not that I’d know.

  Met our friend Alan and his partner Kent for dinner. Do you know that TV reality show, the Fabulous Beekman Boys about the two New York gay guys who buy a farm and fight all the time? It should be called the Fabulous Bicker Boys. I don’t give those reality boys another month. I mention this because Kent is a farmer and now he and Alan are the real life gay farmers, much more real than reality TV. Oh yeah, more lobster. Good thing for bibs; clean clothes running low.

  In fact, for the first time in 40 years I experienced a Laundromat. Nothing has changed. I still had to search in the sofa for quarters to slide in the slots. Four decades later it’s exactly the same, only this time, mercifully, I wasn’t washing mini-skirts. (Oy, I’m having a college flashback, complete with Mateus wine and bellbottoms).

  Then we drove several hours across middle of nowhere Maine, stopping for a good but greasy Italian sub in the town of Passagassawakeag. There’s nothing I can say more amusing than the lunch menu in concert with the name of the town.

  Finally! Our campsite in Wells, ME is the kind I’d always pictured. Large wooded sites, turned so your neighbor’s rig is not in your face. Gorgeous. And there was a path to the water where Bonnie and I, along with Moxie and Paddy sat in Adirondack chairs, sipping Bacardi Sangria (black cherry soda for adults), overlooking a wide, rocky-coasted bay.

  Then, tonight I simply fell in love with Camden, ME with its busy, beautiful harbor, historic buildings, shops and galleries I cannot afford and a mean bowl of clam chowder. Ahhhhhh.

  AUGUST 3, I THINK

  Okay, Uncle. We just came from the 63rd Annual Maine Lobster Festival in Rockland, ME. Crafts, artisans, music, snacks from all the worst food groups, and lobster everything – shirts, hats, pajamas, recipes etc. Bonnie and I exited the giant Eating Tent having consumed four scrumptious lobsters between us. But I believe we have finally OD’d…somebody get me a hamburger, stat!

  AUGUST 6

  I see gay people! Rainbows abound in Ogunquit, Maine, our last stop on this whistle-stop tour. Another beautiful Maine town, but with a queer bent. Hooray!

  Went fishing and Bonnie is irritated because I caught a fish and she didn’t. I reminded her we should both be irritated since the resulting filet was pretty much a $108 McDonald’s fish sandwich. But the boat ride was waaaay fun.

  Heading home, with my book finished(!), a bus filled with souvenirs and newly purchased RV accessories we didn’t know we needed, plus heads filled with plans for future trips. Look for our rig, The Bookmobile, coming soon to a town near you!

  September 2010

  THE TIMES THEY ARE A CHANGIN’…OR ARE THEY?

  Recently, a lesbian friend showed me a photo she got from her married daughter. There were five Barbie Dolls on a blanket. Two pairs of Barbies lay tangled in hot embraces and the fifth, had outstretched arms, as if to say “What about me?” The display was staged by a four year old.

  Now it goes to my point about change, that Mom didn’t flinch and even added the text “Hmmmmm…I have no words.” Grandma just laughed.

  That incident was followed the next day by an episode of Rizzoli and Isles, the new cop show with Angie Harmon and Sasha Alexander solving brutal murders. In this case, a lesbian wearing a wedding ring was killed outside a Boston club. As the police do in most murder investigations, they suspected the spouse first. “Think it’s the wife?” one cop said to the other. Only as far as I can tell, this was the first time mainstream TV has matter-of-factly included a same sex Massachusetts wife as a matter-of-fact suspect.

  To solve the crime, Ang
ie Harmon went undercover at the gay bar. What could have been a field day for snarky homophobic innuendo, simply wasn’t. The scene was tasteful, hilarious, and the best part (spoiler alert, if you haven’t watched this one yet), was the discovery that wifey did do it, so frankly, we’re being treated just like everyone else…huzzah!

  On the big screen change has come by way of Angelina Jolie in Salt. I know she’s not playing for our team, but in this frenetic spy film she does the same butch action hero stuff as any given James Bond. She leaps from windows, lands on moving vehicles and positively kicks butt. It’s a lipstick lesbian fantasy if ever there was one, and that her behavior is acceptable to all speaks volumes about the new normal for the role of women, gay or otherwise.

  We’ve come a long way, baby, judging by the way women were treated in the 60s and shown on TV’s Mad Men, the drama about New York’s Madison Avenue advertising business. We see agency execs gulp booze in the office and engage in rabid ogling of their secretaries. In that culture, women were grossly disrespected and consistently denied opportunity. Their simmering rage finally touched off the feminist bonfire.

  And Angelina Joile in Salt is the apex of feminism.

  “It doesn’t get any more equal than that,” said one of six post-feminist lesbians sitting at my dining room table last week, recalling the quaint phrase “women’s lib” and the forty-year evolution of women’s rights.

  “Remember those consciousness raising sessions – you know, where everybody got a mirror and looked at their own body parts?”

  “Did that actually happen? I think it was a myth, like burning bras.”

  “Well, Gloria Steinem must have done it.”

  “My god, there’s no way I could do that today, my body won’t bend that way.”

  “I’d need a forklift to get back up.”