KC

Happy to leave the car calamity, trailer troubles, and RV roof repairs behind, I traveled to Kansas City. I'd seen my first-born daughter at the start of February. Now it is time to see the young 'un.

This time I won't detail the minutia mucha of every step; instead, I just want to share an overview. Here we go....

The Cloud Factory South of Tonopah

As a child sitting in the backseat of my father's car, we drove along the highway that skirts the lake east of Cleveland, Ohio. Along the way, a giant factory with a red blinking light at the top of its grey chimney belched great puffs of cloud into the sky. I knew it was a cloud factory. I didn't need an adult to explain that to me, so I asked my dad the big question: "Dad, what's in a light bulb?" Tungsten. I knew it was tungsten, but I asked him how it all worked. That was my family-trip question to keep the family chattering and my dad talking. I liked to hear them all talk while I looked at sights along the way.

Flash forward fifty years, and here I am. Driving east toward Phoenix. There, south of me, is another cloud factory. I tried to stop to get a better picture, but the road to the factory was longer than my schedule would allow. I had to be at the airport no later than 2:30.

So I snapped this picture instead.

A Night on the Town

My plane got in late on Thursday night, so we went right back to Laurel's apartment to unpack and unwind. She'd worked all day, and I'd traveled all day. As she showed me around her apartment-loft, I couldn't help but be amazed with how fun a converted warehouse can be. With an inner atrium colored in bright colors to the inside of her apartment, the exposed brick coupled with modern touches made the place trendy and hip.

As I unpacked for the night, I saw Laurel had arranged a bunch of little toiletries in the bathroom, even going so far as to get me shampoo that suited my hair's needs. She went the extra mile to make sure I was covered. My heart swelled up, and happy tears sprung to my eyes.

In the night, Pablo the cat visited me, hopping up next to my pillow and startling me awake. Then, he curled beside me and went to sleep. The next morning, Luna the dachshund, sat beside my bed, staring up at me. I was clearly becoming a St. Francis of Assisi here.

The first day in Kansas City was a whirlwind of activity. Laurel took me a great little breakfast place in her neighborhood where they served everything from sweet-looking pastries to avocados to biscuits and gravy to challah bread.

Next, she took me to an old building that housed a three-floor curated vintage and antique store. I bought some smurfs and a cigar box.

Laurel had to be home for an online meeting, and I had to work in the online classroom, so we made it back for computer time by two o'clock. While I sat and tried to pull my focus into the classwork, Luna sat by my feet.

Later, she stood at the bottom of the couch, looked up at me, and barked. "Come on up," I said, motioning to her stairs for the couch.

She barked.

"She wants to go outside," Laurel said.

"I'll take her," I announced.

Luna photo courtesy of Laurel.

Later that evening, Laurel decided we would dress up for a night on the town. We did something creative with our "fancy outfits" on night one and night two. This stemmed from the purchase of a cute burgundy dress she picked up at the vintage store.

When Max got home, we went out for pizza.

Then we visited the Green Lady Lounge, a premier jazz venue in Kansas City. The place was hopping with people talking and laughing. The band played a hot jazz number, but we couldn't find a seat.

"Let's go downstairs," Laurel said.

"They have a downstairs?" I asked, a little disappointed that we wouldn't be able to hear the band. By the time we got to the bottom of the stairs, the music grew louder because to my right was a whole other band playing jazz.

At the end of the night, we stopped into a dive bar to hear a cackle-voiced old man sing karaoke. With a voice baked by too many years of cigarette smoking, he belted out Neil Diamond's "America." Apparently, he ran the show because all the younger and not-so-younger crowd loved the guy. He was the bar's drawing attraction.

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Saturday Morning

On the second morning, Max went with us to the trendy little restaurant. After that, we went to the Kemper contemporary art museum where we examined the Denzil Forrester works. These were full of movement, and many of them focused on themes of music and dance. We also spent some time examining exhibits of "Tensile Strength," a collection of pieces which the museum describes like this:

Tensile Strength marks our current state of fragility by focusing on the impermanent but lasting materials within our everyday lives. These materials, which often serve as apt representations of our lived experiences, wear and break under duress, but nonetheless persist through steady care, collection, and reinvention.

In this collection I found myself studying the rocks-and-soap-on-magnets-attached-to-sardine-cans display. "I could do this," I said aloud, musing to myself more than speaking to anyone in particular. In reality, I knew that I couldn't or wouldn't. Pieces like this, while interesting and gathered from the detritus of life require a space to store all the parts before they can be assembled together. I had no space to store things. Instead, I store my words, here and in my manuscript. That is my art.

But this soap and rock thing... I really liked it for some reason.

I read the placard, which said June Ahrens is the artist and was born in 1939. This piece was created between 1995 and 1996. June was creating soap and rock art at that point in history, while I was busy with a toddler and a baby on the way at our little apartment in Brittany Acres.

I read more about how the piece, titled Used and Worn, was created: "Ahrens assembled nearly five hundred bars of discared soap over a six-month period from strangers, acquaintances, family, and friends. In describing this work, Ahrens says, 'Each of the bars carries its own individual shape, form, and personality. The surfaces become a metaphor for the psychological and physical nicks, scars, and bruises that are part of the journey.'"

When we returned to the apartment, we watched episodes of Ted Lasso from Season 2. Ria had introduced me to Ted Lasso when I visited her at the start of February. Now, I wanted to try to see a few more episodes in our down time.

While sitting on the couch, Luna climbed up next to me and got comfortable. Rocky came over, purring, and wanted to see what we were doing. He stuck around for a bit and then darted off. "Where's Pablo?" I asked.

"He's around," Laurel said.

Cats. They just kind of do their own thing.

Laurel left for her one o'clock hair appointment, and Max and I continued watching Ted Lasso until Luna had to go outside.

"I'll take her," I volunteered.

Once I was out on the street, I didn't want to go back inside. The overcast sky had lifted, and the sun warmed the streets. Knowing Luna's little legs could not keep up on a walking expedition, and thinking about how freaked out Max would be if I suddenly disappeared with Luna, I returned to the apartment, announcing: "I'm going to go outside for a walk."

Max wanted to watch a college game at three, so it was the perfect time to escape, explore, and get my vitamin D. (The sun is the best source of vitamin D. You can read more about it here and here.)

So, I walked around the neighborhood.

Later that evening, Laurel and I got ready. This time, she wore a burgundy outfit, and I wore the swishy-western-flapper-girl skirt.

Kansas City is all about barbeque with unique stories about how the city became the BBQ mecca. The main driver has to do with the bridge crossing the Missouri River, which connected "western livestock breeders and eastern markets." Due to this connection, the meat markets were a big thing back in the day, and enterprising individuals developed methods and sauces to accompany the "less desirable" pieces of meat, which could be purchased at a low cost. According to the Visit KC page,

Kansas City’s barbecue craze can be traced back to Henry Perry, who in the early 1920s started barbecuing in an outdoor pit adjacent to his streetcar barn, serving slabs of food wrapped in newspaper. Perry’s ‘cue became so popular that fans began imitating his technique and style to create their own unique recipes

From there, several different BBQ lineages developed--Gates, Arthur Bryant's, Jack Stack, etc.--leaving Kansas Citians to squabble over who has the best BBQ and sauce for decades to come.

On Saturday night, Max took us out for BBQ at Jack Stack. I didn't get any pictures of the barbecue plate. I wish now that I did because each cut of meat was so tender, and the side dishes served with the meal were scrumptious! Instead, here are two pics from earlier in the evening after we got ready and in the stairwell:

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Sunday morning

Just as I had done at Ria's house at the start of February, I wanted to introduce a new coleslaw recipe into the family treasure. So, while I finished up my schoolwork for the week, Max and Laurel figured out the coleslaw recipe in the kitchen. (We already had the potatoes boiling and the chicken in the oven.)

After our meal, I packed my luggage while Luna and the cats stayed close by to watch what I was doing.

We all took Luna out for an extended walk because Laurel wanted me to try ice cream from a local place, Betty Rae's. Ready for a new experience, I tried the lavender and honey ice cream. Yowza! I wish I could describe the taste. It's kind of like what lavender smells like, but in a sweet way.

We returned to the apartment to drop off Luna and pick up my luggage. As we were leaving the apartment, Luna thought she was going with us and tried to sneak out the door. Max and Laurel quickly stopped her, and she looked up at me with pleading eyes. My heart broke. I wish we could have taken her along, but we were going on a three-mile hike through the forest before the airport. Her little legs wouldn't be able to make it.

On the drive to the forest, Max and I started discussing the news and speculating about where the world was headed and how various news threads seemed to tie together. Laurel, who was driving, turned to look at us and said, "If you'd rather not go hiking, we can go back to the apartment and bring out the corkboard and red yarn." While I was momentarily tempted to do just that, I wanted the forest more. However, I had to include this one snippet of conversation because I thought Laurel had a pretty good line. It needed to be shared.

Finally at the forest, we trudged through the late winter remains and looked at how the hard buds had started forming on the trees. I'm not sure what the groundhog said about spring this year, but I could feel it in the air and hear it in the bird song. Soon.

Later, at the airport, I explored the new terminal building. The TSA line was quick and easy, and the gates all seemed close by. Everything felt clean and new. The flight, however, got off to a late start as we sat on the tarmac for a long time before the pilot announced: "Sorry for the delay, folks, we have to reset the computer before we can take off." When we finally did take off, I fell right asleep after such a long and eventful extended weekend.

Special shout out to Frank for taking time away from his family to pick me up late at night from the Phoenix airport. Thanks, Frank!