Hey Jakey,

I left the house a little early this morning cuz you pooped on the floor.

You tore off your diaper first thing after you got outta bed, and pooped in the middle of the living room, then stepped in it and tracked it all down the hallway and into my bathroom. I cleaned *you* up the best I could, and got you dressed, but couldn't bring myself to start in on the rest of the house, so I woke your daddy up and bolted out the door about 45 minutes earlier than I normally do.

Since I didn't want to start any kind of precedent at work, I stopped at the beach and smoked a cigarette and had a refreshing breakfast of potato chips and diet coke, while listening to a CD of slow songs that I burned for my message board buddy secret CD mix exchange thingie.

This particular beach is in front of the Valhalla Lodge, where I stayed that one time, many years ago, when I took that stupid little "vacation."

I can't remember what year it was, but it was before we had a car, so it was maybe '96 or '97?

Worst. Vacation. Ever.

Your daddy and I had different days off back then, so occasionally we would take separate outings when we felt we needed to get out of town. I decided that I wanted to go to Tahoe, so I jumped on the Hound, and 10 hours later (normally a five-hour drive), I was there. I didn't have a bunch of spending money, so my plan was to spend the first night in a nice room in a casino hotel, then find a cheaper place off the main drag for the next couple of nights. So far, so good.

It was the dead of winter, and I'm not really a snowsports kind of person, so what really is there to do in Tahoe if you're also not a gambler? Too cold to do much hiking around, no transportation, so I couldn't jump in the car and drive around the lake. I holed up in the $60-a-night Valhalla Lodge, got stoned, read a lot, and watched tons of tv. Which I could've done at home, for free.

Like I said, after lodging was paid for, spending money was really tight. I bought some frozen burritos at the supermarket, and heated them up by laying them on the heater in the hotel room. Breakfast was all the free continental breakfast I could stuff in my pockets. I spent the warmer part of the days wrapped in a blanket on the beach, reading and journaling and feeding the geese, and when it got colder, I retreated back to the room and watched tv.

All in all, kinda sucky, but not the horror that it would eventually turn out to be.

A few days later, I packed up, more or less refreshed, and jumped back on the Hound. The damned bus broke down just an hour or so out of Tahoe, at the top of Donner Summit. I know what you're thinking, but no, the passengers did *not* start ripping each other limb from limb and commence chowing down. We waited quite patiently for three hours for the bus company to send another bus.

The bus that they sent had an overflowing toilet tank, which released noxious, overpowering gases every time the bus turned a tight corner, which, since we were in the mountains, was every three seconds. This went on for the eight hours it took us to drive to Oakland, all the while stopping at every podunk little bus stop along the way, as we were picking up the original bus's passengers, as well as the replacement bus's passengers.

I've only been to the downtown Oakland bus station a couple times in my life, and as God as my witness, I shall never ever ever ever return. If ever there is a filthy, stinking hub of unwashed, unsavory humanity, the Oakland bus station at midnight is it. Normally, our original bus would've headed straight to San Jose, and I would've been in bed, my mediocre vacation a distant, receding memory.

But no, here it was, the middle of the night, and I'm waiting for a connecting bus home, surrounded by felons. No, I'm talking honest-to-God felons. A couple hours later, the felons and I crowded onto an already packed bus, and the only place I could find to sit was way in the back, sandwiched between two gentleman who had just that evening been released from prison. How do I know this? Well, beyond the fact that that was what they *told* me, they were pulling their recently recovered "valuables" out of manila envelopes and saying things like, "Oh dawg! I ain't seen this shit in months!" One gentleman asked me to please relax a little bit, and told me that perhaps he would take me out for a drink when we got to San Ho.

So we finally rolled into "San Ho" at around three in the morning. Everyone on the bus had somewhere to go and "poof," they were instantly gone. I don't know what's worse, being in a bus station in the middle of the night surrounded by felons, or middle of the night in a deserted bus station. I called your daddy to come pick me up, and finally, my nightmare was over.

Got home, got a couple hours sleep, then went back to work.

Anyway. What's my point? The PULL of this damn place: Tahoe. Wanting to be here, even though it's easier to be someplace else. Stopping off so casually at the beach on the way to work, when 10 years ago, stopping off at that same beach meant a 16-hour bus ride and a $60-a-night hotel room and warmed-over frozen burritos. Do I love living here? Yes. Am I glad you were born here? Hells yeah. Is it worth all the bullshit? Yes, yes and yes.

Okay. Gotta work. Love you! Be sure to use the extra-strength poopy cleaner with enzymatic deodorizing action!