11th: Sudden Drop

The time has come for my annual post from the trailer. As always, our return to Spring Valley has me feeling reflective and nostalgic, although you would think it wouldn't be now. You'd think I'd have formed more associations with our modern visits and feel like "This is a place I regularly visit as an adult" but the pull of memory is strong. I just took a walk around the park - solo - to try to lean in to the feeling of being 13 again. Under most circumstances I don't think being 13 again would be a good thing for me, but hey, there are worse things than being younger and more energetic.

There is a difference with this particular visit that actually puts me more in mind of my childhood than normal. Namely, we're at my mom's trailer for the week. Mom had not avised us that she and Ross had not been able to get their wifi up and running, so it truly has been like a trip back to the 90s, minus the novelty of being able to walk up to any of the numerous people I knew here then and just hang around talking bullshit for the whole time. Instead, it's just the part about being anxious about being separated from civilization, which my computer-soaked brain of the late 90s always felt when I didn't have the other kids around.

I don't want to be too dramatic, but I have thought of the word "cursed" a few times since being here. Okay, so there's no wifi. It's a trailer resort, you're almost not even supposed to have access to the outside world. Data is spotty (for me, Mel seems to have more luck.) The weather has been dull and dreary so far today. Yesterday was blazingly hot but we got here late so it was starting to cool off. For years all I have wanted was that one sickeningly hot day that makes you need to jump in the pool, and it looks like we won't be getting it -- the forecast calls for rain all week, although Thursday is supposed to near 30 celsius so maybe we'll catch some summer heat and sun then. Even my tablet, which I have not really turned on much in the last few months since appropriating my work laptop (my dad's loaner) as my writing computer. I left that home, so I thought I would rely on the tablet, but it appears to be on the fritz, perhaps because it desperarely needs several months' worth of windows updates that, absent any wifi, we have no access to. I am writing this to you on Mel's laptop, which we brought on the premise that we'd be watching some Netflix but, you know, no wifi. I've floated the idea of going and sitting on Aunt Lori's porch and stealing her wifi but I don't think we'd be able to get onto their wifi on this laptop anyway. Oh, and I'm writing this in a .txt to post later because I've got to do *something.*

And I should note that, as Mel has napped, I've already been by there to do just that on my phone, but I felt guilty for lingering too long. It is currently Tuesday, August 10, at 3:44 PM by the way. The rain has started to let up. I'm on the porch, surrounded by houseflies.

With Mel napping, my options for entertainment are this, writing (which, yeah, maybe, but nothing that requires online sources) solitaire (thank god I brought a deck) or walking back around the park - again - and pretending it's 1999 and Marianne Atkins is hoping to get my attention. I did bring a book, of course, but I was hoping to be able to read some comics on my phone, and not only can I not access it online, I couldn't even log in at Lori's because of asn issue with the account server. A fine time to fail me. I can also avail myself of any of the "great assortment" of TV channels Mom and Ross have (they had it on CNN when we got here, just as they do at home -- I flipped around and found the new 90 Day series, "The Single Life." Not the most riveting spin on that franchise, but it's something.)

I'm not averse to sticking it out, but we've already spoken of cutting our vacation short. Mel didn't seem necessarily serious about the idea but she wasn't opposed to it either. If the weather was good it would be no problem without the wifi, and vice versa (we've definitely been here at times where it rained.) But you can only take so much nothing.

I'm going to hold it there and see if I can get Mel up for some fun before dinner, now that the sun is coming out.

Keep on rockin, whenever this ends up getting posted

Scotto