Things started when I received a patch from Dan Daetz after I backed his Kickstarter for The Hole Man. It had vivid gold letters, a striking jet image, and the words “Sci Fi Jet Pilot.” This could not stay in my desk drawer.
I snagged an Air Force colonel’s jacket from an estate sale and reached out to my sister, who sewed on the emblem with her machine.
Then a badge arrived from another author friend, A.J. Eliot, for her Kickstarter book, Windrider. I knew this patch needed to go on the uniform, too, plus I had a deadline.
I wanted to wear the blazer to a writers’ conference where I’d see A.J. I procrastinated but finally reached into my sewing box. It consisted of four microscopic spools of thread and a tomato pin cushion with all the pins driven to their necks.
And one needle that was already threaded. My miracle needle. Trying to push a thread the size of a hair through a hole the size of two hairs is a great way to spend your evening.
I didn’t have to do that, so I sewed. The strand got shorter and shorter. When I tried to knot the thread, I found out there wasn’t enough left.
I tossed the blazer over a chair. The patch stayed in place so I was set.
I flew to the writer’s conference and got many comments on the jacket and emblems.
During a session, I hung the coat over my chair and a writer sitting behind me tapped me on the shoulder. “Do you know that you have a needle hanging on the inside of your jacket?”
That forgotten needle. I shoved the point into thicker fabric.
I had already gone through security and flown about 1000 miles crammed in a tight seat with this needle dangling inside my jacket. I had to shed my belt, my watch, and a necklace to get through the security gate, but the needle didn’t trigger a single alarm.
My trip home included the same airport security and the same 1000 miles. The needle never registered an alert.
It hasn’t poked me once, so I haven’t tackled the next step yet.
We’re starting to become buddies. I am honoring two authors and a miracle needle at the same time.
I’ve flown three times in the last year, which included my adventure with TSA and the protein powder. You can read that story here.
When I learned that there was a TSA app that might give me the inside info for my next flight, I was all over that. Maybe I could avoid getting patted down again.
And down the rabbit hole I went, opening the list of what I can bring. I was thinking twenty to thirty items on their list.
Oh, foolish me. There are almost two hundred. I think. I didn’t count.
Did you know you can take artificial skeleton bones in your carry-on bag and your checked bag?
Love the Lanes?
No bowling balls or bowling pins in your carry-on bag. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody try to bring on a bowling ball or bowling pins. Maybe I need to fly more.
Speaking of common sense (or Captain Obvious), dynamite is out both for your carry-on and your checked bags. Same for fireworks.
And don’t let your kids bring a foam toy sword in their carry-on bag. Do they hope that cuts down on sibling skirmishes?
Waiting On Burgers
No hoverboards. Hummus is OK, but ice picks are not. No word on cheeseburgers.
You can’t take a kirpan in your carry-on bag even though it’s considered an instrument of mercy, grace, empathy, and goodwill. It still looks like a sharp dagger.
No realistic replicas of explosives in your carry-on or your checked bags. Rocks are OK.
You can carry on your vacuum robot, but don’t even think about bringing the airbag out of your vehicle.
Inviting Rosie
I did notice there was no comment about protein powder. I’m flying in a few months, but I’m considering skipping the protein powder and bringing along Rosie the robot vacuum instead.
TSA says she’s safer than I am with a scoop of whey.
Here’s your quiz: what do four states, Carhenge, and a tornado have in common? If you said my sister and me, you’ve been paying attention.
This all got started when my sister and I drove six hours from home, into Wyoming, to visit family. We had a full day for the return trip, so why not go a different way?
Ah, you can see the problems forming like storm clouds on the horizon, huh?
Hold that metaphor. You’ll need it later.
We started out in Wyoming (state one) and drove east to Rapid City, South Dakota (state two) for breakfast. The skies were vast and clear blue.
Then we turned south toward Scottsbluff, Nebraska (state three), inspired by the prairie, the rocky bluffs, and massive fluffy clouds.
Detouring to the Replica
Then somebody in the car who wasn’t me wanted to go to Carhenge. Why not? We re-programmed our maps app.
Carhenge features dented cars and pickups buried and arranged like a to-scale replica of Stonehenge.
The founder’s motto is “Why not?”
After checking out every old car in the park, we reprogrammed our maps app to take us home. We’d get back to Colorado (state four) early afternoon.
That’s what we thought.
Our maps took us east. We didn’t notice because the road curved like limp spaghetti. Well, and because we were talking a lot, too.
“We’d better not be going through Sidney,” I said.
“Why?”
“It’s out of our way.” I checked the app.
Going East After All
We were heading straight for Sidney. Too late to correct. We were better off staying the course and getting home from the east rather than north.
As we closed in on our hometown, I was studying the weather app when my sister said, “Those clouds south of us look ugly.”
“Radar shows the red spot in the storm will stay south of us. You won’t have to drive through it this time.”
When we were out on the road and came onto a storm, she was always the one driving through the red spot–that howling, angry rain-and-wind part of the storm. She gets growly about that sometimes. “Do you see what I see?”
What We Both Saw
I looked up from the app. “A tornado.” I loaded up the camera app.
I shot pictures while she fidgeted. To be fair, the tornado was more of a wannabe with a wimpy, pale tail.
“It won’t cross the road,” I said, looking at the weather app again. “And it’s dissipating.”
“I’m not driving past a tornado.” She veered across two lanes of traffic–she checked first–and took us off in yet another direction.
Our six-hour trip took about ten hours. But the tornado subsided. We visited Carhenge. And we did not go through a fifth state to get home. A good day overall.
I often travel with my sister, who is as into to-do lists as I am. She called me the day before we left on a trip last month. “Are you packed?”
“As much as you are.”
Which was code for, “I haven’t even done my laundry yet.”
We had decided to visit family in Wyoming.
I actually booked a motel room for us ten days ahead of time at the Arrowhead Motel. I had several emails confirming the reservation. All from the Arrowhead Motel.
I was ready to order the “New Great Planner” award for myself as we started out for Sundance.
As we neared the town, my sister (who was driving) asked for directions to the motel. So I just punched “Arrowhead motel, Sundance” into my maps app.
Um, no Arrowhead Motel in Sundance.
I didn’t panic. I had at least five emails from Arrowhead Motel, so it must exist.
But did I dig into those emails? No, because I had a better plan. (As the New Great Planner).
Our brother had told me he and his wife were staying at the Bear Lodge Motel, which was right beside our motel. So I just needed to search for Bear Lodge Motel. That’d be faster than rummaging through all those emails.
I typed in Bear Lodge Motel, and the map found it. “Take a right at the stop sign,” I told my sister. “We need to go about a mile.”
Sure enough, a mile east we spotted a big bear sign on the corner with a sign Bearlodge right by a building about the size of a three-car garage.
Sundance was a small town, but really? That was a pretty small motel.
“That’s the Bearlodge Ranger District,” my sister said. Not nicely, either.
Whoosh. My planning award flew right out the window.
I hadn’t looked up the population yet (that’s more planning than I’d do) but learned it was a town of 1,143, small enough to accommodate driving up and down every street.
“Every street, huh?” My sister didn’t say that nicely, either.
I had a smart retort loaded into my response tray, but then I spotted a sign. Bear Lodge Motel. And right behind it was a building.
The size of a car wash. In fact, it was a car wash.
The Bear Lodge Car Wash?
A block later, we spotted a big sign for Bear Lodge Motel and a little sign beside it for Arrowhead Motel.
What did I learn? That Wyoming small towns seem to like names like “Bear Lodge” and “Arrowhead.”
“What do you think this says?” my husband studied a small box he’d lifted from the shelf at the grocery store. “Do you know any of these words?”
We were in a grocery store in Nogales, Mexico many years before Google Translate was available on our phones.
Translation was apparently my responsibility on this shopping excursion, so I browsed the ingredient list.
Browsed in the sense that I tried to put letters together to make words. I knew the letters, but I didn’t know the words.
“Well, this picture could have something to do with an antibiotic,” I said.
His frowned. “That picture could be a pumpkin for all I can tell.”
He was right. The printing was not clear.
We should have brought a translator, but the available ones weren’t available. They were tending to our son’s wounded knee.
Our family had come to Nogales for a week to repair a church building. Somehow, in the construction, our son’s knee had connected with something rough and hard. We had been sent in search of antibiotic cream while they cleaned the gash.
We went, confident that we were reasonably intelligent adults. A bit too optimistic since we were in a Spanish-speaking country where we didn’t know the word for antibiotic. We didn’t even know the word for first aid or bandage.
Finally, we settled on a slender box that appeared to have an image of a wound along with the brand name printed on the front plate. It could have been a logo of a whirlwind, too. We weren’t sure, but there was a tube in the box. Close enough for the clueless.
We took our find back to the church and handed the box over to the nurse. She pulled out the tube.
Sometimes you wish you had a translator and you don’t. Sometimes you have a translator and wished you didn’t.
She translated for us then. In between giggles.
Instead of buying antibiotic cream for our son’s knee, we’d picked up a tube of Preparation H.
The reason the boys were ready for me when I pulled up in the big van was what they held in their hands.
“We found these!” Saber unfolded his palm to show me a rubber ball on an elastic band.
I’ve seen plenty of rubber balls. I launched a jaded smile, and then he threw the ball down. It bounced high over the building roof with the elastic band unfurling into the blue sky before rebounding and then caroming again. This little contraption had more energy than a litter of hungry puppies when mama pokes her head into their view.
The boys had finished a week at church camp, and I was bringing home a gaggle of eleven-year-olds. Assuming a gaggle is seven. A well-entertained gaggle of giggly boys.
Each of the boys launched a ball above timberline, filling the air with giggles.
I could see the potential here.
“OK, guys. No bouncing the balls in the van.”
They all nodded, and their arms went into hyperdrive to exhaust the rebounds before they loaded. No tree top was safe in the flurry of rubber spheres.
Finally, we loaded up and pulled away from camp, making our way down the mountain. All was well until I pulled up at a stoplight in a little town partway home.
Traffic was heavy, and I had been watching cars surround us, pressing close in the rush hour. Then I noticed snickering from behind me. High-pitched joyful laughter. Monkey laughter. Or a gaggle of boys giggling.
Saber had worked his arm out of the side window, holding onto the elastic band. And he was bouncing the ball on the street.
The bouncing orb careened between stopped vehicles, skimming over the edge of side mirrors and radio antennas. It soared with abandon above SUVs and smart cars, ricocheting from curb to curb, defying gravity with its joyous leaps.
That ball was having as much fun as Saber. If it had a mouth, it would have been emitting monkey giggles.
Saber heard the growl coming from the driver of the van. Me. Growling.
It took him a minute to retrieve the ball after I threatened to dunk him in the lake if he didn’t get the contraption back inside. Reeling in the saggy strap took a little while as though it didn’t want to return to the dull confines of the van. Maybe a little like Saber.
Then he rolled up the gadget and stuffed it in his backpack, giving me a smile fit more for angels than gaggles of boys. His bounding ball had kissed the clouds that day. He had explored wild freedom with a blue sphere.
And he reminded me: “I didn’t bounce it in the van.”
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Translation was apparently my responsibility on this shopping excursion, so I browsed the ingredient list. 
I’ve seen plenty of rubber balls. I launched a jaded smile, and then he threw the ball down. It bounced high over the building roof with the elastic band unfurling into the blue sky before rebounding and then caroming again. This little contraption had more energy than a litter of hungry puppies when mama pokes her head into their view.