Happy birthday- beep beep

I can’t wait for the day when I hear a horn honk I know it’s not for someone’s sad quarantine birthday or anniversary, but that it’s for good old fashioned road rage anger. If I hear one more happy honk, why I just might.....#makehonkingangryagain. Seriously I think I’ll shed tears of happiness the next time I hear a horn honk and I look up to see some angry fella shaking his fist out his window at another driver. That means we’re all be eating birthday cake together again 🙂 🙂

Rays White supremacist's Home of the Beefburger

I called Rays Hamburgers to see if they were open Friday while driving in the car with my kids. It rang twice and went to their recorded message which played over my car speakers. 

 “Welcome to Rays drive through, Home of the beef burger! To place an order with our friendly wait staff, please hold on the line and someone will be with you shortly.” 

 I hung up. 

“What do you think Darby and Cooper, do we want Rays?” 

 “No! They are racists” says Cooper.

 “Why do you think that?!?!” 

 “Well, they said we can place an order with their friendly white staff. They shouldn’t say that., it’s racist.” Lolololol

 “Buddy, they said “waitstaff” , not “white staff.”

 “Oh yeah, that makes sense.”

George Floyd

I guess I’ll be the one that says it.

 Everything bad that happens isn’t because of “race”, yet you’re all in a race to be the first to say it is.

 I watched the video and was sick to my stomach. There is nothing good about seeing a man, made in the image of God, lose his life as officers argue with bystanders. The police officer so casually restrained this man with his knee at his neck as he lay there pleading with him for air; the restrainer dismissing his pleas and showing such negligence and eery calm, he may as well been eating a sandwich as this man took his final breaths. It made me sick to my stomach to see. The officer didn’t think this man was telling the truth. He was wrong and he appears to be negligent in his restraint seeing that the man was already handcuffed. 

 I don’t know what happened before the video started recording or what led to this. I don’t know what it’s like to be a police office day after day in Minneapolis. I’ve never been trained as a police officer in restraining people. There’s a lot I don’t know or understand. All I do know is I didn’t like what I saw and it made me sick. I wish it never happened. I wish I could turn back time and I could go tell this officer the morning before he left for work that using his knee as a restraint would lead to negligent manslaughter and change his life forever because he was about to end a mans life...a man that had friends and family and people who loved him. I wish I could turn back time and go to George Floyd’s house and just tell him to stay inside for the day so he could continue to live and breathe and do life.

 A few years ago, one of my neighbors was intoxicated and broke into another neighbors house. He fled when the cops showed up and ended up getting wrestled to the ground in our front yard. We heard the man going on and on about how he couldn’t breathe ( this wasn’t long after the death of Eric garner in nyc and “I can’t breathe” became the leading mantra) he yelled that he would sue him, did he know who he was and on and on and on this restrained neighbor went. The cop kept him restrained until backup arrived and he had help to get him in a squad car. 

 YEARS ago, circa 1997, I was driving through Milwaukee with a friend when we got pulled over. He had an outstanding warrant in Wisconsin and they hauled him off to jail. While in jail that night, he witnessed a diabetic man die. Guy was arrested for being unruly at his own house, he was in fact having a medical episode ..this continued as he sat in his jail cell untreated asking for medical attention until he eventually died. My friend watched them carry his dead body out. He was ignored for so long, Rigamortis actually had set in as they carried him out of his cell. It never made national news, it never caused riots, it never made us all jump on the internet and talk about racial motives, the man was white. It was negligence. The family sued and won their lawsuit. 

 This is a broken world and bad things happen, negligence happens and injustice happens. 

 It is NOT always racially motivated, as a matter of fact, I believe it’s usually NOT racially motivated. It’s the nature of the terrible job of policing, and what happens when we use imperfect broken people as police officers to arrest imperfect broken people. I wish we had perfect human beings to replace them...but we don’t because perfect human beings don’t exist. 

 That situation in Minneapolis is BAD, it’s so so terrible. Seeing people pile on and instantly applying racial motives to the officers is also egregious and frankly opportunistic. You don’t know this was racially motivated...maybe it was? Maybe all four officers are part of some secret order of KKK members and they got together and decided to kill as many black men as they could before getting caught on camera. I doubt it. Maybe its another case of negligence? I don't know, and you don’t know either. You know who does know?? The Lord. 

 This actually happens more than you see on tv, but you all see something that happens publicly on your televisions and INSTANTLY apply racial motive without knowing anything. Y’all want so bad to show that you’re not racist because that five letter R-word and accusation flies around so freely these days, we think we have to be the first to say this was racially motivated lest anyone question if we’re one of them. I was sick when I saw George Floyd die, I thought it couldn’t get any worse...then I saw all of you jump on the opportunity to apply motives with no knowledge, and that made me sick too. Today I woke up to news of looting and fires and businesses being destroyed. Cops having rocks and water bottles thrown at them. This is hell. Where is the bottom? 

 Come, Lord Jesus, I’m ready. In the meantime, I’m thinking about strapping on a camel hair dress with a leather belt and fleeing to the desert to feast on locusts and honey. Jeff says “make sure you take the kids with you”. 🙂

Magic Cabin

Every once in a while, I'll be in a conversation with someone and they'll ask me: "Have you ever stayed in an Airbnb?" 

 The short answer is Yes...the long answer is as follows...

 In August of 2017, Jeff's parents decided to have a family reunion at the state park in the Poconos mountains near their old rustic family cabin Jeff grew up going to. If you've never heard of the Poconos, chances are you're not a Yankee or from the Northeast quadrant of the US. The Poconos is a popular mountainous wooded resort area two hours west of New York City and two hours north of Philadelphia. Jeff's parents owned the old beloved, yet run-down cabin that had seen better days up there. I'd stayed at it once a few years prior and vowed to never do so again. It's since been knocked down. 

 Planning the trip, I knew that Jeff's parents and younger brother were going to be tent camping. As the designated trip planner, I opted not to camp with them given that we were driving my minivan cramped with five of us to the area from Michigan and traveling on to New York City, the Atlantic City shore, and Gettysburg afterward. I didn't want to have to pack a ton of camping gear that would take up precious cargo space for one stop. Option two was that run down family cabin I'd stayed at once before, that was a definite no from me. Jeff loves that cabin, but I held out. His  70 year old parents opted to tent camp and let us have the cabin. I  declined and gave the offer to Jeffs other brother and his family who also declined. 

 I kept hearing about Airbnb, this new online company where you could rent people's homes in lieu of a hotel room. So, as I was searching the internet watching hotels book up at hundreds of dollars per night per room, I decided to check out this new Airbnb website I'd been hearing about. I searched for three bedroom rentals that could sleep a minimum of five people and landed on a place called "The Magic Cabin." It boasted three bedrooms, a full kitchen, and large bathroom. It had a large outdoor deck in a gated community at $150 per night. By the pictures, I saw it appeared to be clean and nicely decorated. I thought I'd hit the jackpot. 

 It was owned by a beautiful black woman named Joelle. I learned this by reading her profile host summary with picture included on the Airbnb website. Her profile described her as a tarot card reader and psychic. I didn't think much of the psychic stuff since we were just renting the place from her and we were saving a boatload of cash with a full kitchen available to us. It looked like it was rented out all summer, so I assumed it was her second home she used as a vacation rental property. Reviews were decent. 

 What I didn't yet understand about Airbnb is one can filter out rentals by A) host staying with you, or B) host not staying with you. I totally missed that part. By the time we were getting close to the Magic Cabin, I was chatting back and forth with Joelle through text asking how this worked. How to get the keys, any instructions, etc etc. I figured she'd be meeting us there. She was being pretty vague. Maybe she psychically knew I had no idea what I was doing and was about to get the surprise of my life. I was still completely clueless that we were sharing the living space with her. Jeff, myself, 16 year old Miles and my 10-year-old twins. 

 When we pulled up to this magic cabin in the woods, I was sort of looking around for signs that Joelle had arrived. There was no car in the driveway so we waited for her to show up. There we were, standing on the front deck of this A-frame cabin with large bugs whizzing all around us in the middle of the hot August day when the front door slowly creaked open to reveal a large framed woman in a slim ankle-length black dress; donning a black lace veil over her face. She looked quite morose as she stood there silently. Joelle was dressed like she was headed to a funeral and it was 1925. Joelle was also a man. Joelle was once Joe. The doorbell continued to chime away as we walked in the front door hesitantly waiting for her to welcome us and give us instructions to her place. 

 Her demeanor didn't change much, she quietly and calmly pointed out the kitchen, the bathroom, our bedroom, and the loft where the kids would sleep. Then she pointed out the room, in between the kids sleeping areas, that she slept in. It was at this point I realized my Airbnb error. I was just wrapping my head around this new arrangement I hadn't realized I'd contractually agreed to when suddenly Joelle, feeling the need to explain her morose disposition said 

 "I'm so sorry, I've been in mourning. Several people I know just died."

 Initially, my heart melted with compassion hearing such tragic news, "Oh my dear, I'm so so sorry to hear this, how terribly awful, I'm so sorry ", I responded, still newly disjointed from realizing our Midwest Michigan family was about to spend the next two nights sharing a home with a drag queen two hours west of NYC. ...."Do you mind if I ask? What happened to them?" I asked, as doorbell music continued to chime along in the background nearly five minutes later. 

 "Oh, they all died in their sleep", Joelle answered. 

 That's when I transitioned compassion to what started to seem like the beginning of how most horror movies progress. Now on the outside, I was as cool as a cucumber. But inside, an anxiety tornado was starting to swirl. It started asking questions..."Are we going to die in our sleep here?! Were these friends that had rented this Airbnb before us?!" I wanted to ask her. Yet I kept my thoughts captive as I continued to assess the situation. 

 We were there, there were beds, Joelle could be totally harmless and it could be totally normal that several of her friends had somehow died in their sleep without further details or explanation. We were also $360 into this thing with additional cleaning fee's Airbnb tacked on to the nightly rental cost. Hotels were booked up everywhere, we didn't have tents, and believe it or not, it still seemed like a better option than Jeff's family cabin that was rotting away. We determined we'd stay. 

 We went out to our minivan parked in the gravel driveway, gathered the kids in a circle, held hands, and proceeded to bless the house in the name of Jesus, and prayed for Joelle's broken heart in her grief. Then we unpacked and got ready for our two -day stint at the magic cabin with Joelle the psychic.

 The doorbell sound never stopped our entire stay. We finally realized it wasn't a doorbell chime at all, but Joelle's choice of music. The boys liked it, of course, they told us it was very artistic just like Joelle was. The boys really liked Joelle too. They also loved Joelle's roly-poly cat, Queen who wore a diamond-studded kitty collar. I got to spend a bit of time chatting with her. She'd moved from LA to the area a few years prior for a boyfriend who had recently dumped her and had been feeling quite depressed. She was trying to figure out if she should head back to LA. She was very very sweet. She never offered us any psychic advice or tarot card readings. She had a large manly frame but a very soft demeanor. When she spoke and giggled she sounded like Michael Jackson. 

 I won't lie; there were things about The "Magic" cabin that unsettled me. For instance, there were peculiar paintings of things that looked like demons with twisted faces throughout the place Idol statues here and there. Random piles of rocks set up in neat circles in a few of the corners of the floors throughout the cabin for their "spiritual energy". There were tree branches hung on the walls as decorations that were reminiscent of something out of the Blair Witch Project. A spiral staircase connecting the two floors had a different crystal or small idol placed on the edge of each step. Joelle was a tarot card reader and a self-described psychic so this was her jam, and this was her home. We just prayed blessing over her home and for Joelle specifically as we were guests in her home. We played worship music on our phones. 

 There were some cool things too. Joelle had an operating lit disco ball in her bathroom; that's not something you see every day. And this really nifty blue light that made the shower stall, that hadn't been updated since the seventies, look like it was underwater with these really cool blue light wave patterns.

 I didn't like the bugs, and I didn't like that the boy's bed literally looked like a squatters mattress on the floor without sheets in their room. I was glad we brought extra blankets and sheets. Our first night there, the twins' room was so stuffy that I opened the window to cool it off . Instead of experiencing the cool breeze I was expecting, we realized there was no screen on the window and the room quickly filled with moths from the surrounding woods as I frantically rushed to close it again We spent 20 minutes removing the moths before tucking the boys in bed and then another 20 minutes praying we'd all survive the night. 

 Miles set up wasn't much better, he had a mattress on the floor of the open loft next to Joelle's bedroom. He was also fortunate enough to be staying in the space that housed the computer that belted out the continuous ding dong music we heard from the moment we arrived. The second night we stayed there Miles said he had gone to bed with his screened window open; but then woke to the window closed; which meant at some point during the night Joelle had leaned over him in his bed to close the window. Or, was it magic that closed the window? 

 Our bedroom was fine, a few bugs here and there which meant I didn't sleep well, but I also didn't get stabbed to death in my sleep, so a win for me. Unlike the kids, we actually had a real mattress atop an actual bed frame with sheets and a dresser and everything that makes a bedroom suitable to rent. Jeff slept like a baby. 

 There were so many bugs everywhere in that cabin in the woods that Miles came down the spiral staircase shirtless after our first night there to use the shower when a large spider literally dropped from the ceiling and landed on his back. This sent him into a panicked frenzy and made me reconsider whether or not the rotting family cabin would be more desirable for night two. Then considering the cabin didn't have A/C, it was 100 degrees outside, and was just as likely to be filled with bugs, I took my chances swallowing spiders during the night and my family being murdered in our sleep for one more night. I spent most of the second night laying in bed imagining Joelle standing at her front door days from now, freshly showered after working hard burying all five of us in her backyard woods, telling unsuspecting Airbnb guests that she was mourning the death of several people that had just died in their sleep. 

 To our surprise, the next day we'd learned that Jeffs tent camping family woke up at 2 am to horrendous rainstorms that caused rivers of water to run right through their tents. So, in some way, we had some solace that our choice to weather the magical cabin was still better than what they'd gone through. 

 The day we left, we took a few pictures in front of the spiral staircase. The weirdest thing happened. Without anyone noticing, even me..the one facing the stairs taking the pictures; Joelle managed to travel up and down those spiral stairs, which had always made a noise when we used them, during the 3-minute photoshoot I was taking of Jeff and the kids. We never saw her,. We never even realized she'd been there until later in the day when we were looking through the pictures and there she was in our pictures! How on earth did she do that?! The place really was magical. 

 The best part was explaining to Darby and Cooper that Joelle most likely spent the better half of her life as Joe the man. They were so confused, as any other small town midwest Michigan kid that was once excited to use their first escalator as a six-year-old would be. They didn't believe it. This took some convincing on my part. I had the pictures of her on the staircase I unknowingly took from the photoshoot. After seeing her Adam's apple and impressively large calf muscles they were convinced. When they finally came to terms with it, Cooper turned to Jeff and said "Jeff, Jeff....if you ever become a girl...we'll call you Jeffeny".

 And that was our family's first experience staying in an Airbnb. We've since learned to filter rentals without hosts staying with us. But the stories aren't nearly as interesting.