Special Events – Page 14 – Where Vivid Narratives Live

Tiny Home Jamboree

For the past two months, I’ve been researching the feasibility of buying my own place. Seems like a premature endeavor since I barely have two spare pennies to rub together, but this new insurance job that I have is promising.

Nonetheless, one thing I concluded early on is that I didn’t want a house. I thought perhaps a townhome or condo would suit me just fine. Too bad they’re all out of my price range, especially in the new area where I wanted to move.

Enter tiny homes. For the amount I thought I could purchase a condo, seems as if that’s tiny home prices. That’s why I pounced on the opportunity to attend the Tiny Home Jamboree. I wanted to see what was available in this market, so I went with a friend, who’s actually a homeowner, but wanted to put a tiny home in the lot adjacent to her property and use it as an office.

Unfortunately, the weather reached around 106, so we slowly roasted as we checked out the tiny homes, starting with the DIY ones outside the Travis County Expo gate.This guy’s short bus had a Radio Flyer theme, complete with an actual Radio Flyer wagon in front.

I thought it was a little dangerous to have the bed next to the stove, but still it was otherwise a great use of space.

He even had a little dining table on the other side of the stove and the compost toilet was behind me in this picture.

Before attending this event, I had a bias against buses, but all the wood paneling added warmth to the ambience and won me over.

This was one of the biggest buses in the DIY lot. I thought it must be horrendous to drive this monster.

Yet, check out the full kitchen and pantry!

I really liked the bathroom area since I could stand in the shower.

Plus, there was a compostable toilet, which was a popular model.

This rustic homey DIY had to be pulled by a truck.

Again, I took bathroom shots since I don’t plan to be off the grid as far as some campers were, but many people enjoyed the fact that they had no home base and could see the country while driving along with their home.

Although I want my future tiny home to be in one place, I still appreciated the functional use of space in most of the mobile designs.

This guy, who I nicknamed “Shaggy,” owned a van that was painted as a jungle of marijuana leaves with his stove hitched on the inside of the van door.

This was the first DIY I actually visualized myself living in. Those wide steps were very sturdy and I liked the kitchen area along with dining table/workspace to the side of it.

I felt comfortable climbing the stairs to see the sleeping area.

I also liked the view of the kitchen and dining/work table from the stairs.

This was the only bus I’d seen with a club-footed bathtub. Yet it was in the kitchen without any privacy!

This family did have a private toilet area, but that “public” tub left something to be desired, like a wrap around shower curtain!

I liked how the tiny house from landlocked Colorado reminded me of a ship. The owner said that that wasn’t their intention in the beginning, but it morphed into ship.

The copper floor was made out of thousands of pennies, adding to the penny shortage, no doubt. This was the most elegant tub among all the tiny houses.

Compared to the rest of the home, this sink was surprisingly plain.

The area above the bathroom reminded me of the bow of a ship.

For this model, although I liked the full kitchen with the bathroom behind, I wasn’t so sure about the sleeping quarters being above the kitchen, especially with the spices I use! And that ladder didn’t look middle aged woman-friendly.

Here’s another spacious tiny home I visualized myself living in. Not only were there twin mattresses and one queen-sized mattress upstairs with middle aged woman-friendly stairs leading to them, but a full bathroom and large bedroom in the back. Is it possible for a tiny home to have too much room?

So apathy, overheating and hunger worked against me taking many other pictures, but this wraparound wet bar spoke to me. I loved the elegant arrangement of the storage space. More practical people can have a dining area instead of this wet bar, but “dining area” can be anywhere one eats. A wet bar on the other hand…

Tea Sit

I had no idea what to expect from attending my very first tea sit. It certainly wasn’t advertised as a “tea party,” in which case I would have been compelled to wear the one frumpy-looking hat I owned. Even when I googled “tea sit,” no such a thing existed. How could that be? Everything that popped up consisted of how long to allow tea to brew.

As I pulled into the steep driveway, lined by lush trees and other foliage, and branched in opposite directions, I saw a gathering of women already seated on the porch. Another woman and I were the last two to arrive, making a satisfying total of eight. Enough people to make the conversation rich, but small enough for everyone to be heard.

The UT graduate student who conducted the tea sit had several tea cups that held perhaps four sips of tea, so it was more for whetting one’s whistle than quenching one’s thirst. And like all events where no electronic devices are involved, time slowed down.

The hostess informed us that she liked arranging these teas because she wanted to create groups where people had self-renewing care mechanisms in place to address well-being. My takeaway from the gathering was that she wished to create a means for people to exit the rat race where it’s a constant battle, mentally and physically.

We were a multiracial group of women where none of us were mothers, whether child-free by choice or childless by circumstances. We all acknowledged that we could pour our time and energy into child-rearing or practically everything else that needed creative energy.

In addition to discussing self-care, we discussed, inevitably, our immersion into the toxic political climate, especially how the dominant narrative reacts to changing circumstances. Despite how “changing demographics are being foisted on the American people,” a nonsensical statement in reality since the demographics are a reflection of what’s happening in American society, Americanism in this case was use synonymously with “White.”

The alarm was sounded because American society appears browner over time, yet, looking at congress and other positions of power, there is still an overrepresentation of Whites; but the drum beat of the mid-term elections promises to diversify at least the political demographics.

So the constant challenge remains how to achieve both personal balance with one’s daily life as well as navigating through the changes happening all around us.

Malvern’s Multi-Verse with Teresa Y. Roberson

Although I first started The Austin Writers Roulette, a monthly theme-inspired spoken word and storytelling event, on July 2012, Malvern Books has hosted the show during the last three years. Dr. Joe, owner of Malvern Books, invited me to talk about my writing career, the Roulette and offered me a chance to read a few selections.

This was the first time that one of my books, Tribe of One, was available at the bookstore–mainly because they had been in a dark corner of my closet for years nearly forgotten about.

Cedar Park Night Hike

I hadn’t hiked with the Meetup group I joined for that very purpose in a long time. I figured that time of day, which was actually night, and a new area that was completely paved, may be just the thing to put a little more variety in my week.

At first, I didn’t think I was in the right place since GPS had led me to a makeshift parking place on the side of the road. Just as I was texting the organizer, another person parked beside me with a similar bewildered look on his face. I rolled down the window and confirmed that he was there for the night hike with the Meetup group as well.

He was a recent transplant from the north, still adjusting to life here. I expected the usual complaints about the heat and humidity, but he added a bonus track: chiggers. Somehow, I’ve managed to avoid them all this time, but he took virtually no time in attracting them.

I didn’t mean to laugh, but at least I shared with him a home remedy–paint clear nail polish over the affected area, which was later confirmed by another woman who joined us in the middle of the conversation.

Proving once again that karma was in full effect, I felt something crawling on my calf and when I swatted it, I discovered this beetle:I made sure not to tease or laugh at that guy again!

Overall, this hike proved to be very animal-rich in terms of sightings. Including that beetle, we saw a deer while still waiting for people to arrive; heard an armadillo, which some brave people entered the brush to confirm; and of course, the typical birds flying over before the sun went down.

By far the strangest animal was the patent lawyer. He seemed to have absolutely no sense of irony while he praised the use of plastic for saving lives. His solution for plastic-trashing Earth’s environment was harvesting the resources from other planets such as Mars or Mercury. So to recap, this fool, while taking a night hike in a park, allegedly to enjoy nature, thought that plastic was one of the best things the human race had come up with and that we should harvest the resources off other planets to the point of their complete destruction, which he didn’t think would have any impact on us because they were “so far away.”

After that line of reasoning, he then argued against humans being the most destructive species on the planet. Again, the man seemed immune to irony.

We stopped at a historical point along the trail. Our organizer told us that the now defunct train tracks that we saw above had been the site of a terrible wreck where many granite rocks were being transported. I posed with the most accessible one.

Part of the reason I wanted to hike with this group was to get away from work, which was exactly why I spent half my time talking to a life insurance agent. I felt she attempted to recruit me. I’m not sure how prevalent that sort of thing is in other industries, but ever since I became an agent, I’ve been subjected to recruiting efforts by others who somehow got my phone number. That started just after I passed my licensing exam.

At any rate, I told her about joining a friend, who was also a life insurance agent, as my Plan B if my current situation didn’t work out. Nonetheless she told me about all the different products her company offered. She made her income with just two state licenses because of the variety of products. Just another variation of a theme as far as I’m concerned.

Despite being an easy stroll in the park, the hike was more than what my permanently injured ankle had bargained for. I’ve babied it less in the past months, which has made it stronger, but still not 100%. All that means is that I’ll have to watch out for other 4-mile easy hikes.

Notorious RBG

The Austin chapter of the League of Women Voters (LWV) sponsored movie night at one of my favorite theatre chains. Normally, no one is allowed to talk or even have their phones out at a certain point and the theatre becomes a quiet zone.

Yet, this was a “rowdy” viewing of “RBG,” meaning we were allowed to clap and cheer for the brave, bold, logical assertions of one of the remaining liberal Supreme Court Justices, The Honorable Ruth Bader Ginsberg. LWV seized the moment to register voters, disseminate voting information, especially about early voting, including a time-saving convenient website, vote411.org, where registered voters can enter their address and find personalized election information.

For this special viewing, even the tables were decorated with placemats similar to RBG’s judicial collar. I started the evening with my favorites: a glass of water and Malbec.

Prior to the movie, a spokesperson from the movie theatre welcomed us and explained that when management and staff previewed “RBG,” they couldn’t stop themselves from cheering, booing and applauding and knew they had to offer some “rowdy” viewings for the general public.

Next, the president of LWV, flanked by two members who dressed like Supreme Court Justices, gave us a brief history of the suffrage movement in Texas and the organization itself. They invited those of us who weren’t members to become members. As luck would have it, I sat beside the next LWV president, who will take over those duties in June.

Throughout the documentary, the same two struggles kept lurching forward: gender and racial discrimination. When there was progress in one area, the other area used it as a basis of analogy. Yet, the most entertaining gender/racial analogy was when RBG acknowledged that not only did she know who The Notorious B.I.G. was, but they had several things in common, such as they were both born in Brooklyn.

I had a heroic moment after the movie–at least for me. As I walked toward my car in the parking garage, a woman approached her car and screamed. Ever so cautious, I stopped walking and called out before coming over, “Are you OK?” She answered, “I think a crazy guy put a snake on my windshield, but I can’t tell whether it’s real or not.”

It just so happened that I’d witnessed the incident that she was talking about. After I’d parked, I walked toward the theatre when one of those black overcompensating-male-ego trucks vroomed by. Thank God I was paying attention because I stepped between the parked vehicles, making sure that fool didn’t hit me. The other driver, the woman who was now concerned that he’d left a snake on her windshield, started screaming obscenities at him, which was a moot point since he was long gone. Apparently she’d taken a little too long to get out of his way, but still….

I turned on the phone flashlight, shined it on the windshield, and that snake turned its head to look at me. And you thought Michael Jackson could do the moonwalk! Next thing I know, I was several meters away from her vehicle.

The woman was about to work herself into a good hissy fit over that asshole leaving a snake on her windshield, but I reasoned with her. First of all, I didn’t think the guy would return after the fact and toss a live snake on her car because the incident in question was too trivial in nature to go to such extremes. Secondly, even if he had left a live snake on her car, it would not have remained there for hours. Lastly, I saw a pipe running along the ceiling, which went over the top of her car. I hypothesized the snake slithered across the pipe and dropped onto her car.

My reasoning calmed her down, but the next dilemma was to determine whether the snake was poisonous. She’d wanted to take a picture, but it had slithered away. I backed up even farther. Just then, an SUV, with two guys in it, started to park nearby. I approached the guy riding shotgun.

“Excuse me, can you tell the difference between a poisonous snake and a nonpoisonous snake?”

To his credit, he didn’t seem at all fazed that I’d asked him that question in a parking garage while his (boy)friend(?) was attempting to park. He readily admitted to being a park ranger and knew how to tell the difference among snakes. As he stepped out of the car, I pointed him in the direction of the woman who needed his assistance and continued to my car.

Not nearly on the level of RGB’s contributions, but I think she would agree that everyone should do her best within the moment and situation.

B 12

Anytime the leasing office at my apartment complex offers free food and drinks, I make sure to attend since they raise my rent every year. I figure over time, I can consume my money’s worth. This particular event centered around Bingo.

Even though I’m middle aged, I feel too young for this particular game, which I associate with retirees despite the fact it’s seen a revival among the younger generation. Nonetheless, I’m either too young or too old. The cards were already on the table when a handful of us entered, fixed up our bowls of nachos and ate while the first game began.

Throughout the evening, the winners only needed to be the first ones to get a straight. The first game took an incredibly long time to conclude when two guys both won with G 59. I made a mental note of that number since Dad has always been an avid Bingo and Pick 3/Pick 4 lottery player.

After I finished eating, I sipped red wine and used the Bingo chips to make designs. They wouldn’t allow us to use more than one card; so I had plenty of time on my hands in between numbers being called.

In between games, I’d refill my kiddie cup of wine, but at one point, the leasing agent noticed that it was empty and offered to refill my glass. I shared with her my sentiment of having the bottle on the table since I was the only one drinking it. At that point, some dude, who was sitting at another table, piped up, saying he could help me with it. As if. At least I no longer had to make the 20-step round trip to the kitchenette counter to refill my glass.

Then, a miracle happened: I won a round of Bingo. I’d just said, “I need B12,” and thought of how I take that vitamin supplement both for energy and to ward off memory fog, when I heard the Bingo caller say, “B 12.” I turned around and asked, “Are you serious? You just said, ‘B12’? Bingo!”

After initially teasing me that I didn’t have Bingo, the staff laughed. The leasing agent happily screamed, “I know exactly what you want!” She disappeared into the kitchenette and brought me an unopened bottle of merlot. That wasn’t even one of the original prizes offered. As a matter of fact, I was the only one offered a bottle of wine. The other Bingo winners either got their choice of a $5 gift card or one of several apartment knick-knacks.

I readily accepted my wine. Much better than a mere $5 gift card and I didn’t need any knick-knacks.

First Three Pages: Bad Driving

What began as a 3-minute radio drama script with one MeetUp group, transformed, after much painful Word Doc template formatting, into a movie script. After all that work, an opportunity presented itself, in the form of a script-writing competition, to get more mileage out of my effort, “Bad Driving.”

The Austin Film Festival usually hosts all of its competitions in the fall during their big festival, but sponsored its inaugural First Three Pages competition in collaboration with the ColdTowne improv actors outside of their regular festival time. They mentioned, at the start of the show, that they wanted to hold the competition every month. After the event, the producer in me suggested that they consider doing it once a season.Two of my friends joined me before the show to enjoy complimentary drinks.

Unfortunately, only one had bought her ticket ahead of time and there were none available for sale at the door. Yet, since we’d arrived early, we still had a wonderful time talking.

Another friend, who is a member the same film MeetUp that I am, showed up without a prepaid ticket, but he was far more determined to get in and signed up for the waiting list, figuring that someone would either not show up or the venue would allow him to stand in the back to view the show.

[From March 2nd until this night, March 20th, the greater Austin community had been terrorized by a package bomber. So, there was a good chance that some people would remain home due to fear. Everyone who showed up did so out of defiance of those acts of violence and a determination to go on with life and not let him win.] Another friend, who had been among the first to purchase her ticket, arrived just after we’d been allowed to enter the tiny theatre space, which perhaps sat 60 people. Nonetheless, I loved reconnecting with her since, out of all of my friends who’d came out to support, she was the one I’d not seen in quite a while.

Every audience member was given a ballot to vote for their top three scripts. On the back of the ballots was a snarky set of instructions on feedback etiquette. As far as voting was concerned, I knew my piece was number one. Until the improv actors performed the third script. Then, I knew I was number two. They even performed my script fourth, which turned out brilliantly, causing me to daydream about making it my first animated film.

As I’d surmised, that third script about the lesbian couple coparenting their dog won. I was satisfied.

Crossing Borders

I’ve crossed many international borders, starting with being born in Japan on a military base. I don’t remember entering The US since I was barely over a year old, but I didn’t leave The States again until I was 22 as a Peace Corps Volunteer and later as an expat math and science teacher at various American and private schools.

I literally fell across the border walking into Zimbabwe from Zambia. One time, I had to run back to the last train stop in Zambia because I missed getting my passport stamped since I was using the bathroom when the immigration agent passed through my cabin and had already exited the train, which was about to cross into Tanzania. And the time I landed in Turkey, I was tempted to jump back on the plane when I discovered that Americans had to pay $100 just to enter the country. There was a brief moment when the immigration agent saw that I was born in Japan, looked at me closer and asked if I was Japanese. A part of me was so tempted to ask how much was the visa if I were Japanese, but I made life easier for myself and said “no.” Being detained in a Turkish prison for fraud or whatever my illegal actions would have been called sounds like a good story, but I’d much rather write a fictional account of that.

Most of my border crossings have been via airports, especially when I worked in Egypt, South Korea and Honduras, but when I lived in Mexico, half the time I drove, especially if I were going to The States. I’d moved to Egypt a month before 9/11; so when I returned to The States for Christmas and summer breaks, I was ALWAYS the randomly searched passenger. That ended just as soon as I’d moved to Mexico—except that one time.

I’d been living in Monterrey, Mexico for two years and had become very comfortable with driving to the border on a Saturday morning, shopping in either Laredo or McAllen, Texas for the day, then driving back in the late afternoon. Normally, all I showed border control was my American driver’s license and that was that. But this one time, for no good reason, I showed my passport instead. The same passport with all those Egyptian, Emirati, Jordanian and Turkish stamps. Granted, I’d had immigration stamps from Germany, Greece and Tanzania, but those weren’t the red flags. I had to pull over and explain my travels before entering The States.

First, one border patrol guy questioned me, but then he wrote on an orange piece of paper, “traveled through many countries in the past two years,” which shouldn’t sound suspicious for people who love to travel, right? I had to wait for another guy who sat in the air-conditioned building to interview me further. As I waited, thinking about how surreal being detained in my own country was, my friend, who happened to be a white woman, just fumed.

“What about me? Why aren’t they questioning me?” She grumbled. “I’ve got Guatemalan stamps on my passport! I could be a drug dealer.”

I didn’t address her indignation or bother to inform her that a White woman with Guatemalan stamps in her passport wasn’t nearly as fear-inducing as a woman with international brown skin who’d travelled in predominately Muslim countries. Traveling while Black—the international version.

I’d actually experienced that phenomenon for the first time in the Charles De Gaulle airport after finishing my two-year stint as a Peace Corps Volunteer. My dreads looked rough and although I wore my best attire, I looked grungy since nothing about my appearance really said, “American” to the extent that the immigration officials had automatically handed me a form to fill out as if I were a foreigner going to The US without even speaking to me.

As I struggled to remember the six years of French I’d taken in high school and college, I wondered to myself, “How the fuck does anyone manage to escape this country if they don’t understand French?”

I finally jumped through that hoop, handed my passport and form to another agent who yelled, “Why are you filling out immigration papers? You’re an American!”

I laughed nervously and explained that someone had given it to me. Somehow, I got through that hoop, but I was irritated. I made a mad dash to the terminal, boarding pass in hand, thinking all the bullshit would be over once I was on the plane. Yet, I was stopped once again in mid-stride when an airline worker, asking to see my passport.

“Oh, you’re an American!” she said with so much shock, I was done.

“Oh, you’re surprised?” I responded as an ugly American.

Out of nowhere, a security guy materialized, got in my face and barked, “What did you say to her?”

As I drew breath to cuss him out like I knew how, the airline worker responded with honey, glitter and rainbows, “Oh, she’s tired.” She handed back my passport, gently placed her other hand on my back and guided me in the direction I’d been originally heading in the first place. International incident averted.

So, the second guy at the US-Mexico border, who sat at a desk that seemed built into the wall, beckoned me over to answer his questions. He asked me about why I’d traveled to those other countries and why I was in Mexico and why I wanted to enter The US and how long I was planning to stay.

At that last question, I nearly lost my cool. “You realize as an American citizen, I can stay in The States for the rest of my life, right?” Fortunately for me, he was in a conversational mood and my question didn’t worsen the situation. Then I added, “Of course, if I didn’t return, I’d lose my teaching job; so, I’m only making a shopping trip today.”

My conversation proved to him that I was on the up and up and I imagine that they ran a quick check on my passport, which was all I wanted them to do in the first place—look at the picture, my name and all that front-of-the-passport information. I didn’t think they’d go flipping through the damn thing and reading all the entrance and exit stamps. Granted, I’d had extra pages sewn in because I traveled a lot, but even so…

He returned my passport and on my way out, I asked the first guy if I could have my slip of paper where he’d written me up for traveling a lot in two years. He said “no,” which was astonishing since those used slips of paper littered the ground. I’m sure no one gave a shit about keeping them as a record since they were so carelessly discarded, but I think he didn’t want me to have any evidence of my brief “detainment and interrogation” as my friend kept calling it.

At any rate, for future US-Mexico border crossings, I only used my driver’s license and had no problems. (Now, that’s the closest any story of mine has ended with “and she lived happily ever after!”)

Free Pancake Day 2018

I love a good food plan. For Free Pancake Day, I did my usual morning workout, showered and arrived at IHOP a little after 8. The only other time I participated in this event, was years ago when I was a classroom teacher and I’d gone after teaching. The place had been packed. Obviously that wasn’t the best time to go, but the best time I could go.

This time around, there wasn’t any wait, even though I’d brought a book with me mostly to read during what I thought would be a long wait for a table. Still, I enjoyed reading while scarfing down a short stack with a side of hash browns and one of my favorite condiments.At one point, much sooner than I expected, I felt like I’d vomit if I took another bite. I’m sure those fluffy dense pancakes expanded in my stomach or something because I reached miserable, bypassing “full.”

When I received the bill, I donated $5 to the Shriners Hospital and got the chance to fill out a cute little sign. I don’t remember if I filled out a sign years ago since a friend had met me that time.

While I ate, I saw one of my former students. Whether she recognized me or not, I kept looking at her to catch her eye, but I didn’t press it since the last time we’d seen one another, years ago, she was mad as hell at me. As her physics teacher, I did my best to get her to work in class. Most of the time, she barely passed because she’d come to tutoring in the nick of time and catch up with her work enough to limp by. The closer to graduation, however, senioritis really got the best of her.

Again, I did all the teacher things to motivate her to keep working, including contacting her parents and advisory teacher about her not graduating. At this point, I cannot remember if she chose graduated on the minimum plan or went to summer school to get a full diploma. All I know is that she never acknowledged me. At least the pancakes were delicious.

Transform 2018

I declared 2018 as the year I’d start becoming a filmmaker. Fortunately for me, The Austin School of Film has a wonderful program where one can intern and for every 30 hours worked, qualify for a “free” class. That’s how I like to think of bartering my time for classes. Normally, I help to keep the facilities clean and do whatever tasks need to be done to support film students and coworking members. Since I’ve been interning, the biggest event I’ve worked so far has been the Transform Fest, created by women, featuring women filmmakers. The night before the event, I helped clean the facilities. One of my on-going pet peeves is the dirtiness of the carpets. Lucky me chose the broken vacuum cleaner before being told that the OTHER vacuum cleaner was the one that worked.

Since we set up a temporary VIP area, I was determined to make it look more presentable than it currently did; so I ran the working vacuum cleaner over the two carpets again. Just then, one of the resident filmmakers, who use the coworking facilities, plopped down on the couch, reminding me of why I don’t live with anyone: if I’m cleaning up, then everyone in the house should be cleaning up! Nonetheless, the area was tidier and he had a terrific nap.On the day of the event, I arrived three hours before the doors officially opened. Of course, I left my apartment late, drove on empty and didn’t have time to gas up. So as I drove with the gas light on, I thought about how I’d have to gas it up after the event, which I don’t like doing after sunset. (Well on my way to little old lady-hood!)

Fortunately, one of the co-organizers asked me to go the nearby grocery store to pick up ten bunches of flowers and tampons–she was real specific about the brand and kind of tampons. I thought about how both items were fertility-related. Before purchasing a variety of flower bouquets and the exact box of tampons requested, I happily gassed up my car at the nearby station. After viewing two trailers and sixteen short films, which all fell within one of several categories, the winner from each category (narrative, experimental, animation and documentary) was revealed by the industry expert woman who judged it. The audience voted for their overall favorite film: a documentary about the senior Ms Texas pageant. I counted the ballots and saw that the most popular films involved mothers.

I finally took a picture with the other usher after the event was over. We’d greeted everyone after they cleared the ticket area, showed them the layout of the facilities, pointed out the vendors and escorted VIPs to their designated area. As a matter of fact, for the first couple of VIPs, I mixed drinks for them because the front of the house hadn’t gotten into an organized groove and I didn’t want to entangle myself. The plan worked.

Another thing that worked out as well was the decision to allow the Sunday volunteers to clean up after the event! Win-win for all because we were tired and often times, there’s not enough work for most of the volunteers outside of special projects.