Yesterday, the parents were once again arguing. My father just knew the previous Cadillac had a DVD and screen in it. She couldn't get him to realize that they have never had one. "You deal with it," she told me.
"We have had a car that plays movies," my father told me.
"This one does, but only when it isn't moving," I said.
"Rachel showed us how to do that, but wasn't there one in the car when we went to Taos?" he asked.
About 8 years ago, Fourth of July week, we all went to Taos. Rachel and Laura rode with me in the Durango. My father and Dustin rode with Tom in his car. Cathy and my mother were in the Bug.
Things were fine for awhile, then Rachel pulled out her Macbook and started playing Moulin Rouge. She plugged it into my sound system, driving me out of my mind. Critics may have been kind, but I swear it is the most miserable movie I've had the misfortune to have forced down my throat. It was vile.
Once upon a time, when my mother was growing up in Florida her father, my Grandfather Froehlich (Grandy) would threaten to through the blasted gall-durn radio into the canal (across the drive from the house) if they did not a) turn it off or b) turn down the sound. That became the standard joke - turn it off or I'll throw it into the canal!
On that fateful day, I fully understood my grandfather's threat. I told Rachel if she did not put on her earplugs, I was going to toss the DVD down the canyon!
Naturally she was quite annoyed with me.
This incident was followed by my getting lost in Santa Fe. I lose my mind in Santa Fe. It makes no sense. The people are rude, the roads are insane. It is a place not fit for human occupation or consumption.
Once again the insane music began. I was still trying to recover from my usual 'I hate Santa Fe' attack. We had turned onto Hwy 76, which is a charming two lane road that winds around a hill side, past galleries and classic New Mexico vistas.
Traffic stopped.
Some idiot was trying to move a mobile home down the narrow road. We did not move for 15 minutes. I was having another breakdown over the blasted music. Rachel, being the typical American teen (at the time) flounced out of the Durango to ride with her mother.
Laura, who had been quiet all this time, sitting in the back, told me to lock the doors.
I did.
My sister locked her doors.
Rachel laughed and then stomped her foot as she came back to the Durango. She could not get in.
She went to her father's car.
He locked the doors.
She came back to get in my car.
Doors locked.
Couldn't get in her mother's car.
Traffic began moving - very slowly.
Rachel had no choice but to begin running along the side of the road, chasing cars.
Cars honked. People in houses came out to laugh and wave.
She became a little irate.
Traffic moved faster.
She ran faster.
Finally her father stopped long enough to let her in his car.
A good time was had by all but Rachel.
My father started laughing. "So the DVD player was in your Durango in Rachel's computer. That was one of the funniest things I ever saw."
It is quite strange what he remembers and how. Once he gets it straight, he's usually quite good about it.
Once Rachel was back in one of the cars, and we finally had lunch, we went to the little church El Santuario de Chimayo, known as the Lourdes of America. My mother was suffering with a severely injured finger that was causing her to be in constant pain. At the little church she prayed for healing for her finger.
The following morning she realized she had no pain in the finger. Nothing hurt! While it would require some interesting surgery a few months later, she never again had the horrible pain she had lived with for months.
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