Author: the outside lane

I am a big fan of Shirley McClain the Actress.  I know nothing of Shirley McClain the Human Being, and this book was the first I’d met Sachi Parker, her much neglected daughter.  All I knew of McClain was her body of work and her self-disclosed adventures with aliens.  I had no idea that she truly believed Sachi’s father was a spaceman, or that the man who raised Sachi was a clone of her biological father, left on Earth to confuse the Russians.  But once you learn that, you realize that McClain isn’t just a seriously flawed parent, she is a seriously delusional person who truly believed she was helping save the world, or at least NASA.

I am going to save you a lot of reading.  This book was written after Sachi Parker discovered that her mother had blocked her from getting several acting jobs.  She straight up says that she decided to write the book to expose her mother as being a competitive, cutthroat actor, who wouldn’t even lift a finger to help her daughter land a role, and who slapped down several roles that her daughter might have landed.

It wasn’t the neglect (McClain only saw Sachi on summer holidays and some breaks, and once forgot to pick her up from boarding school), the emotional abuse (starvation interrogation tactics), or the general nuttiness (McClain arranged for her daughter to lose her virginity while she and a couple of sex therapists waited outside the room) that makes up Sachi’s complaint (though they do make up 3/4s of the book), but it was McClain’s refusal to help her along in the entertainment industry that broke the camel’s back.  And when you know your mother is crazy, is that the bone you choose to pick (and speaking of bones, how do you even begin to begin when you know there are three people waiting outside the door?)

Long story short regarding Sachi’s parentage:  “Paul” Parker met and convinced McClain that he was a spaceman, who had a clone called “Steve”.  He said that when he and McClain married, they would have to live apart because he would be in outer space, but that “Steve” would be staying on Earth to confuse enemies of the US space program.  When Sachi was born, McClain sent her to live with Clone Steve in Japan, then funded “Paul’s” space missions with $60k a MONTH until Sachi made the big reveal (in her adulthood, after finding out what her mother believed) that Clone Steve was actually using the money to fund his exorbitant lifestyle (apartments in Paris, Hawaii, LA, as well as several homes in Japan, yachts, mistresses, etc.)

Sachi insists that her mother truly believed the space clone story, and says that just before her father’s death, he admitted the long con.  He admitted he had strung McClain along with the story that he was in outer space, and his clone was raising their daughter.  Now, for me, once you have told the world that your father is a class A conman, who may have just perpetrated the most complex, long running con in the history of romantic usery, and once you have told the world that your mother believed you were sired by a spaceman, and raised by a clone, you lose all right to complain that your mother cost you acting jobs.

The first 3/4s of the book are great.  Good story-telling, bright prose, and–you know–Shirley McClain.  The last quarter is all sour grapes.

3 out of 5 stars for being entertaining, but awfully self-indulgent.

I had a fantastically perfunctory and gloriously impersonal lady doctor visit today.  Best kind to have.  No awkward conversation.  No weird commentary.  Just the up-top, the down-below, and I was out of there.  Five minutes.  No lie.

But to get to the five minutes, I had to wait for fifty.  I was 15 minutes early and the doctor was 20 minutes late, and they had to get all my vitals before the exam.  C’est la doctor’s appointments.  Since it was the same waiting room I spent hours in over the course of Thor’s percolation, I had plenty of time to reminisce.  I came to this conclusion:  One of the reasons I find it so disappointing to have had only one pregnancy/child is because I was so ignorant and afraid through the first one.  I think that I could be learned and less terrified, more able to enjoy the process with a second one.

The roller coaster is terrifying the first time.  It’s a thrill the second time.

Then again, the second time makes me throw up, so…

I had another thought when a 400-year-old woman hobbled out of the exam area while I was waiting.  It went like this, “What a cute, little lady.  She must be 400 years old–SWEET CALVES OF MERCY! I THOUGHT YOU GOT TO STOP COMING TO THIS PLACE ONCE YOU’D MADE MENOPAUSE!”  Guess not.

My new office is less than half a mile from where Thor was born.  I drive past his point of origin every day and I think, “That’s where my baby was born!”  I can’t help smiling.  You know, I thought that was the best day of my life, but every day of my life since then has been even better than the one before it.  Sitting in that waiting room, I thought about the first time I heard that heartbeat.  The first time I saw actual limbs on a sonogram.  The day I realized I was one of those women (though I had sworn I wouldn’t be) who would trade her eye teeth to be induced.  Ha!

I had a good, happy life, and a good, happy pregnancy, but when Thor was born it was like someone had turned on a light switch and showed me I’d been living in the dark.  Every time I drive by that hospital, I remember how fortunate I am.  I remember how blessed I am, and I am grateful.

I love that feeling of all-consuming gratitude.

It gets me through doing homework with the boy 😉

Busy, busy, busy!  But not to busy to take a quick trip down to Big Bend National Park, hitting up the McDonald Observatory on the way.

I got a wild hare last month, and suggested that we take Thor to a Star Party at the observatory.  I am an astronomy nerd, and thought it would be fun to spend an evening star gazing at a telescope park.  We stopped at Cueva de Oso in Balmorhea on the way.  This would be the first of several great meals we had on the road.  Seriously some of the best tacos I’ve ever eaten in my life.

The Twilight Show was informative and fun, and Thor loved being part of the interactive portion of the evening, but I was excited to get outside to the amphitheater for the star party.  Aside from how gorgeous the sky is that far out in the desert, and aside from the thrill I always get when people star talking about galaxies, and nebulas, and red giants, and all that good stuff, I GOT TO SEE JUPITER AND IO!  Not just Jupiter, but I got to see Io!  I was all kinds of nerd dancing around in the telescope dome.  Better, Thor got to look through the telescopes and saw the moon’s surface, the Orion nebula, Jupiter, and a cluster of stars.  How many little kids get to see stars being born?

Both the Twilight Show and the Star Party get 5 out of 5 stars for me.  It was well worth the time in the car, and did not disappoint in the least.  Oh, and the chicken salad from the cafe was ridiculously good.  Or I was just ridiculously hungry.

We spent the night in Fort Davis, at the historic Hotel Limpia.  The hotel itself was nowhere near Ritz Carlton levels of accommodation, though it was running in to 4 star pricing.  The room smelled kind of funny, had rocks for pillows, was beaten up, and had clearly been decorated from the Dollar General (I love the Dollar General–don’t get me wrong), but it was comfortable for the night and was staffed by very friendly, very helpful people.  Breakfast in the cafe was also fantastic.

The hotel gets 3 out of 5 stars, just because it was a $40 a night room that cost 4 times that much.

 

Our stop on the way out of town was historic Fort Davis, where we lucked into a tour with a park ranger, who clearly loved his job.  I love things like that, and we had a great time touring through ruins and restoration.  I don’t think Thor enjoyed this part as much as B and I did, but it’s another one of those things that not every little guy gets to see.  If nothing else, we stimulated his cerebral cortex and built him some new neural pathways in his brain.

I absolutely give Fort Davis 5 out of 5 stars.  Very well done restoration, excellent tour, and better than normal you-read-’ems at every exhibit.

 

From Fort Davis, we took off to Big Bend National Park.  I’m not a native Texan, but I am pretty proud to be a naturalized citizen of this great state.  It is one impressive spread of land, from the Gulf to the Desert.  We drove through Marfa, looking for art and hippies.  We saw hippies, but no art.  We did see that someone had spray painted “Lame” over an art gallery sign.

It seemed to take forever to get to our hotel in Terlingua, but once we were there, I was pretty charmed.  We stayed at Big Bend Resort and Adventures, which looked like something out of that Brady Bunch episode, where the Bradys went to the Grand Canyon.  It was a total motel, complete with big plastic keychains for our door keys.  When is the last time you got an actual key to a hotel door?  It also smelled exactly like my great-grandmother’s trailer, but again, I was charmed–and it was nothing a little window-opening couldn’t fix.

This was another case of Dollar General decorating, and there was no hair dryer in the room (sad, since I didn’t take one with me), but the price was better and they had regular coffee available in the room.  I give them 4 out of 5 stars for what else was available around us–which was nothing.  I’ve never stayed anywhere so desolate!

We dropped off our things and drove into Big Bend National Park, then spent the rest of the day driving through the mountains, gawping and gazing.

You know what?  The stars at night are truly big and bright, deep in the heart of Texas.  And you can see miles and miles of it.  And I don’t ever want to live anywhere else.  (Unless we retire to Eureka Springs to open a B&B, the fantasy with which I entertained myself all those long miles of nothing between here and there and back.)

If you like just driving through scenery, camping, hiking, or being outdoors, Big Bend does not disappoint and is all that good stuff on a grand scale.  5 out of 5 stars.

Also getting 5 out of 5 stars?  The High Sierra Bar & Grill where we had dinner out on the upper deck.  Glorious tacos and a big Blue Moon under the stars, watching campfires blooming in the distance, crickets chirping, and nothing else in the silence made for a really nice experience.

Not as good was the Chili Pepper, but with only 2 restaurants open between 2 and 5, we didn’t have a lot of choice at that time of day.  3 out of 5 for them.

Nothing in Fort Davis or Big Bend is luxurious, but everything was very good, and this City Girl felt right at home.  I’m looking forward to getting out there again when we have more time, and hopefully getting our own campsite in the Park.