LeeAnn Prescott - Escape From Nowhere

B is for Birthday

For kids, birthdays are all about presents. Presents and cake. Presents, cake, and a party. A party where all your friends come and give you presents, and sing "Happy Birthday" to you.

Being born on December 23 does not facilitate having a big party, which means your opportunities to get presents are limited.

All through my childhood, I was envious of kids who had birthdays in the summer. They got to have outdoor parties, and maybe go swimming at a lake. Their relatives and friends gave them presents for Christmas AND their birthday. I sometimes got cards from relatives that said "Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas," and contained perhaps a $10 bill. Were my non-Christmas-born cousins getting $10 twice a year? I could never know, but I somehow felt this was unfair.

We always had some sort of little party - usually just me and my mother and Papa, and perhaps a friend or two. My mother made it festive by making my favorite food - one year it was lasagna, another year tofu patties - and a cake of some kind with candles. They would do their best to divide up the gifts evenly between my birthday and Christmas. But I could never remember afterward which gift I got for Christmas or my birthday - except when I wrote it my journal, as I did in 1982 and 1983.

1982 (Benton, New Hampshire)

On my birthday I turned 11. I had Shanni, Angela, and Erika over. We went sliding. Alicia came over. I had a birthday cake with whipped cream and flowers on top. I got a blouse that Cheryl made, a hairless Garfield, and Italian porcelain doll, a Jordache pocketbook, some markers, crayons, a zodiac stained glass window coloring book, the 2nd Big Book of Amazing Facts, some Osh Kosh overalls, and my favorite was a stuffed horse from Marian, Pat and Alicia. We played pin the nose on the clown. Shanni won. Erika spent the night. We played barbie dolls the next day until Darci's hand broke off. Then we got bored. We made a snowgirl because it rained.

Here's a photo of me and Alicia on Christmas day that year. I'm showing her my new stuffed horse horse and my doll Erica (Darci's sister). I'm wearing the blouse and the overalls I got on my birthday. The feather barrette was a Christmas gift.

On my birthday the following year we were living in a little trailer RV in a KOA Kampground in Tombstone, Arizona. Marian, Pat and Alicia ("the Boudreaults") had traveled west with us and were living in the nearby town of Bisbee.

1983 (Tombstone, Arizona)

On my birthday I turned 12. The Boudreaults came over. For supper we had tofu patties, peas, baked potatoes, salad, and bread. I had a cherry pie with rainbow candles and a tofu-orange dessert. It was delicious.

For presents, I got an Indian crafts book, an Indian beaded ponytail holder, a big stuffed Garfield and a loaf of sweet bread (from Cheryl and Papa). From the Boudreaults I got a baseball shirt with pink sleeves and a Pegasus with a rainbow and stars in the background, in pastel colors. From our landlord I got a knitted snowman - the hat fits Sasha. Some people in the campground gave me a copper road runner pin.

That pegasus shirt became my favorite shirt, and I wore it until the iron-on design crumbled off. Note that my mother knew my dissatisfaction with the hairless Garfield I got the year before, and got me a nice furry one that year.

Now having birthday parties is difficult because most people are with their families for the holidays. But I'm far past the age of being present-hungry, and if two people show up and I get to eat some cake, I'm happy.

The Maker Family's Outdoor Solar Shower

A few weekends ago, I went to the Maker Faire in San Mateo. As I stared in wonder at things like a life size mousetrap or a puppy mover monorail, I thought about ingenuity and what drives people to envision something, and decide to make it themselves.

My parents are makers, but of the practical kind. They see something they want, and decide to build it themselves in order to save money. Papa built our house in New Hampshire almost entirely by himself, with only help from my mother and occasionally some friends. He drew up the plans for the house based on plans in a book. He did the wiring and plumbing. If there was something he didn't know how to do, he would ask someone or get a book from the library.

The outdoor solar shower is a great example of Papa's inner maker. In the second summer we spent in New Hampshire, in 1982, the basement was not yet done, which means the house had no bathroom or shower. There was a water pump that sat in the dirt beneath the house to pump water from the well. We had a gas hot water heater for the kitchen sink and a shower stall that stood outside next to the house. This shower worked perfectly well, but Papa wanted to save money on propane by harnessing the power of the sun to heat our water.

There were many trees that needed to be cleared from the property, so when Papa cut down trees to build a bigger parking area at the top of the driveway, he kept some of the straight ones intact instead of cutting them up for firewood. He placed four logs upright in the ground in a shower sized square, and built a platform on the bottom. He then built a platform on the top, upon which he placed a 50-gallon drum that was painted black. A hose from the house filled the barrel with water. There was a spout that came out of the drum and it had holes in it to resemble a shower head. The log posts were wrapped in black plastic for warmth and privacy. The idea was that the sun would heat the water in the drum, and gravity would provide the necessary pressure to make it a shower. This was to be a luxurious outdoor shower experience.

But summertime in New Hampshire is fickle. It rarely gets above 80 degrees. Our property sloped to the North, so even in the southern corner, the forest made a full day of sun non-existent. When I used the shower, I tried very hard to like it. The lukewarm water dripped on my head, and the lack of pressure made rinsing shampoo from my hair difficult. I looked up and could see the trees, but I could also see the dirt of the driveway through the cracks in the platform. The wood was not treated, so slivers felt imminent. But this was grand, this was living off the land!

I longed for a ceramic tub with a high pressure shower. In a room with a toilet.

I used the solar shower a couple of times. I tried to stay at my friend Erika's house often so I could bathe there. Soon my parents switched back to the outdoor metal shower stall with its water pressure and hot water from the propane tank. Some things in life are worth paying for, and I believe water pressure, hot water, a shower stall and a septic system are well worth the money.

On Falling in Love: The Non-Human Kind

On March 29, I adopted my first dog. She's a six year old Yorkshire Terrier, and I named her Betsy. Within a week I was completely smitten. I bathed her, brushed her, bought her toys, a toothbrush, a matching collar and leash, and and watched videos on YouTube on how to leash-train a dog. Getting to know the habits and preferences of this sweet eight-pound being who now shares my home was fascinating. I would sit on the couch and stare at her while she chewed a toy, or watch with interest as she sniffed around the backyard. At some point, I realized I was falling in love, and this innocent love felt familiar - when had I before wanted to inhabit and know another creature so deeply?

We didn't have pets when I was growing up after we went on the road, so I knew it wasn't a pet love. Then I remembered my dolls. My dolls were the center of my world from about age eight to age twelve. My favorite, most special doll was Sasha. I saved money for months to buy her for $40.00, which was a lot of money for an eleven year old in 1983. My mother and and I made her clothes - we bought patterns so that we could make her dresses, a coat, a swimsuit, even shoes. She had a complete ensemble of homemade clothing, more complete than any of my other dolls. I wanted to take her everywhere with me, and changed her clothes and styled her hair every day to match the weather. We would go on imaginary adventures in the house or in the woods, to foreign lands or big events. I wanted curly hair like hers, I wanted clothes like hers, I wanted beautiful skin and a calm presence like hers.

I was in home school that year and I didn't spend much time with other kids. Sasha was my best friend, and Daisy the horse was her best friend. Daisy was also treated with extreme care: was brushed regularly and had a collection of ribbons that would go around her neck. Like many 11-year-old girls, I dreamed of having a real horse, but knew this was not possible with our itinerant lifestyle. At least Sasha, my alter-ego, could have a horse.

I did have a real friend, Erika, who also had a Sasha doll and a horse like Daisy. I can't remember who got which first, but it was essential that we both had the same dolls. Every week or two we would have sleepovers and spend hours and hours playing with our dolls.

When I realized my developing attachment to Betsy resembled the attachment to my dolls, I noticed how real a relationship with an animal is. I have to feed her and take her for walks. She does unexpected and instinctual things, like immediately bury bones that I buy her for treats. She barks at other dogs when she doesn't like them. Best of all, the relationship is real, and reciprocal. She licks my face every morning, and every time I walk in the door.