BobserVacation

I finally got around to starting Chasten Buttigieg’s book, I’ve Got Something To Tell You, and was telling Carlos about it. I mentioned Chasten’s coming out to his mother and Carlos said:

“He just came out?”

“Yes. Chasten Buttigieg just came out to his mother, after marrying Pete three years ago, helping him become the first out gay man to win a presidential primary, and after having two children via surrogacy.”

It was then that I opted to put Carlos in the overhead compartment for our flight home.

Tuxedo didn’t say much of anything lately. All we got was this look for the after coming back home. He was not pleased to be left with a sitter, though she told us that he crawled into her lap every time she sat down, and went to sleep.

I saw these shoes on an attractive man while awaiting a flight and thought: Why? 

I tried to sneak a shot of his face to show you a handsome man who seems to be wearing Toddler Shoes For Adults!

Back at Chasten’s book, one of my favorite quotes is when he talks about growing up in very conservative very white Michigan:

“I was swimming in a sea of whiteness and didn’t even know I was wet.”

That began Chasten’s coming out journey and his thoughts of getting out of Michigan and seeing what the world actually looked like.

We ate breakfast between flights at a little café at the Dallas airport and saw a guy have an English muffin and scotch for breakfast at 8AM. Must be the new Continental Breakfast?

My father likes to order food through the mail—Omaha steaks and Pacific Northwest Salmon and such—and while we were out there, a package of Pho arrived. Pho, for those who don’t know, is a traditional Vietnamese dish, a soup, and is quite delicious. But I had a time trying to get my father and Carlos to pronounce it correctly: Fuh.

But the best part was Carlos trying to find out more about it by asking Siri on his phone, and listening to Siri say:

“Fall is one of the four seasons, generally starting in November.”

“Four is a number.”

That damned accent of his!

We ate lunch at a place called The Observatory in Portland and the food, and, of course, the cock-a-tales, were dee-lish … Carlos had a Lemon Meringue—Vodka and Limoncello—while I had the Hibiscus Margarita with Mezcal.

And the signs prove it’s the kind of place that fits the Keep Portland weird vibe and I’m here for it.

When my mother passed away, my father had her ashes scattered at sea, and this is the spot where that last journey began, so we stopped in for a visit, even though it was a cold and bluster day.

My father volunteers at the Oregon Coast Aquarium and always gets us free tickets to visit. The latest exhibit was all about fossils and evolution, but the work of Ray Troll, the artist who created some of the paintings, was what caught my eye. Gorgeous.

Oh, and stop using plastic because down there is what was scooped off the beach near the aquarium in just two hours. Take care of the Earth people. Stop using plastics and try a little recycling.

And of course we traveled down the coats, and up, and visited the sea lions in Newport and, always, stopped for a Dead Guy Ale at the Rogue Brewery.

That’s Billy, my Dad’s latest German Shepherd. He’s a rescue and was abused by his former owners so he’s leery of new people.

But, man, once you get to know him, and he gets to know you, he’s a loving pup.

We woke up on the morning we were leaving to find a text saying our flight to Dallas had been canceled. We dressed and got to the airport early; the agent at the desk was quite nice, though she tried to get us to spend the night and leave the next day. When we told her that wasn’t possible, she was able to get us on another flight, on another airline, that got us home four hours earlier than our original flight.

Very nice.

And on that flight out, a girl was seated in front of us—in hermid-30s—who had never flown before, and her joy and amazement at the takeoff and the view of the mountains out the window had me smiling the whole way home.

Well, at least until we got to Chicago to change planes. I loves me some Chicago, but I hates me some O’Hare Airport.

Cluster-followedquicklyby-fuck.

And that’s some of our trip, in a nutshell. It was great to go away—and we had not one single bad incident or Karen anywhere—but it’s always good to be home.