duck-shaped pain

Oklahoma! is a flat and depressing state. I enjoyed my visit, but boy, do I never ever want to live there, even considering the large amount of beautiful (and cheap!) old houses that I encountered in all the tiny towns I visited. I don't think I could ever get used to the complete lack of natural landforms, the large amount of pickup trucks, the general atmosphere of gloom that permeated the area.

I found it disconcerting not to be able to instantly tell what direction was north. Most of my life has been spent in areas where the topography helped you recognize what direction you were facing. Either it's the Bookcliffs to the north, the Rockies to the west, or Mt. Hood to the east, depending on the place. But to be faced with somewhere so flat and utterly devoid of features was odd. The area where my mom lives wasn't too bad in this respect. There were hills there, and the road actually curved in places, instead of being completely straight.

It snowed right after I arrived, and it continued to pile up until there was about nine inches of snow: much more than I've seen at home for a while. My mom's new house is very isolated, and the roads were almost impassable after the snow, so we stayed at home, not venturing out for three days. It was actually ideal, and we did nothing more than eat junk food and watch TV during that time. On Christmas Day, I drank a lot of coffee and watched the Trading Spaces marathon and never changed out of my pajamas, which is about the best sort of Christmas Day I could ask for.

It should have been stranger than it was to spend Christmas in my mom's new house, with her new husband. For the first time, my mom now has a different last name than I do. She went from our bland, one-syllable Anglo-Saxon name to a bland, two-syllable name of similar origin, but I can't really blame her. Her new name makes her sound like a romance-novel author or a minor member of royalty.

I will admit that the first night there was sort of odd. I was extremely tired from my flight, a brief shopping stop in Oklahoma! City and then the hour-and-a-half drive up to the house. Plus, then there was the experience of being in a new house, with new places to sleep, routes to the bathroom to memorize, new pets to get to know (an enormous dog, plus three cats), a stepdad (a strange word for me to say, even now) to meet, things like that. I was kind of overwhelmed for a while, but then I managed to get over it, thanks to thirteen hours of sleep and homemade waffles the next morning.

My mom's house is enormous. When she told me what it cost (very little for its size), I was astounded. The same house here in my town would cost at least $350,000. Elsewhere in this state, it could cost much, much more than that.

When we at last ventured out, my mom took me to every thrift store and antique store in the area, in both Oklahoma! and Kansas. My mom drives to Kansas often, since that's where the good grocery store is. I didn't find a lot in the thrift stores until the very last one we went to, where I bought a brown cashmere cardigan for $4. That purchase has, for the moment, restored my faith in thrift stores: it's been a long time since I found anything good in one. At one antique store, I bought a small breadwarmer (a little tile which is supposed to be warmed in the oven and then placed inside a basket of bread, to keep said bread toasty), and at another, I bought a Tim Horton's coffee mug -- an odd thing to find in Oklahoma!, I have to say.

Flying home was complicated. Both of my flights were overbooked, so I volunteered to give up my seat in hopes of being rewarded with a free flight. My Oklahoma City to Denver flight went as planned, but I had to sit next to one of the most annoying couples I've ever met, who spent the entire flight either complaining about the plane or making out. The plane landed without any difficulty, but the two of them complained about the landing as if we had slammed into the ground with great force. Sorry to damage your fragile porcelain asses, you two. My flight home from Denver was way overbooked -- 30 people for 15 seats -- so I did indeed score a free flight coupon for giving up my seat. I got put up by the airline in a very nice hotel, in a room that had two TVs -- my definition of luxury. Not as if there was anything to watch, but hey. I also got an absurd number of meal coupons -- two more than I could actually use. I'd heard that you were allowed to use them to buy anything in the airport, but I got a look of shock when I tried to use one to buy the Sunday New York Times. Guess not.

More later.

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