The Eagle Has Landed (Cigar Smoke 2-12-09)

Hello my friends, and hello my commie-loving, socialism-seeking, Democratic Party wastes-of-good-DNA, Obama-Kool-Aid-drinking cultists. (I’m just kidding. I love you people, too. Just not as much as the good people. I’m sure Bill Maher still likes you guys. Go over to his house. Eat his guacamole.)

A while back I confessed to you that my dream had died and I was not ever going to actually buy a little piece of land where Lenny and I could escape to and be men and play with mice. Well, dammit, I misspoke too soon.

I finally pulled the trigger. I was finally able to act. The anchor is off my ass. The dream is now a reality. The eagle has landed. My life is complete. I bought a mobile home up in Oregon, in a little town called Harbor, right below Brookings. It’s just a cow-chip-toss over the California border.

OK, I’ll say it before you do: I am now trailer trash. But I think I am trailer trash in a good way. I now consider myself one of the Jeffersons — moving on up, baby. This mobile home / trailer is actually properly referred to as a Park Model. Which basically means it’s a permanent mobile home in an RV park. That’s gotta be way better than a mobile home you can move somewhere, doesn’t it? And I’m pretty sure permanent trailer trash gets invited to better parties than itinerant trailer trash does. The way I see the trailer trash hierarchy is like this: dead people, homeless people, people who live in motels by the week, RV motor home drivers, mobile-homes-that-still-have-wheels-on-them dwellers, and then Park Model high-class residents, such as myself.

So, being such a model citizen (OK, a Park-Model citizen), I have decided to officially name my abode. Nothing says high-class like naming where you live. I call it “The Eagle’s Nest.” For some damn reason I have always related to eagles. I have user names with “eagle” in them for chat rooms and forums. I have paintings and artwork and art objects and T-shirts with eagles on them. I have a really nice plaster of Paris chalk eagle sculpture from Tijuana with one broken wing where it got caught in the window coming back through customs. I have a beautiful set of patriotic bookends in red, white and blue, where the two eagles’ heads are looking at each other with fierce eagleness. I just love eagles, dammit. Maybe because I yearn to be free and fly off to Alaska and mate with a cheap falcon — or maybe a foxy governor.

And not only was my love of eagles involved in the naming of my new hideaway, “The Eagle’s Nest,” but the hovel was also perched, yes perched, up on this cliff overlooking the harbor and the ocean. There’s a driftwood beach within 200 yards, and the Chetco River flows into the surf right there. The view is pretty damn cool. In fact, when I first walked out on the deck and saw the ocean and harbor and river on the horizon, I said to the real estate guy, “I’ll take it.” And Marge said, “Shouldn’t we look inside first?”

Well, being the shrewd investor I am, I did look inside. I took a two-minute lap around the place, and it had a toilet and a kitchen and no visible rodents, so I thought it would be fine. And I made the dream come true. I bought it. The eagle had landed.

So we came home to Altadena, and I was trying to figure out how to furnish it and I forgot what the hell the inside looked like. So, of course, I had to go back up there to check everything out. When I opened the front door I was stunned. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It looked really nice! Yes, the interior of “The Eagle’s Nest” looked new and clean, and it was actually decorated by a designer and furnished beautifully. An attractive sofa, two specially made recliners, built-in appliances, freshly painted walls, tasteful oak trim, even skylights — I thought I walked into the wrong house.

It was way too nice for me. I felt like I was dating someone from Vassar, which I think is a college. I even went outside on the deck to fart. My Vassar date said, “What was that sound?” I told her it was an eagle landing.

So I come home again, and I’m feeling a little freaked out. Out of place. Unworthy. But I decide I should buy some dishes and silverware, and see if I can accept living in a nice hovel.

I go over to Macy’s (I’m changing already!). I go down to the housewares section and a saleswoman comes over and I say those six little words I never thought I would ever say: “Can you show me the Fiestaware?” She does. I buy a set of dishes in ivory.

To complete the metamorphosis, I then say, “Do you have the matching flatware in Evergreen?” She says, “Certainly, sir. We’re not savages.” She laughs and asks, “What kind of place mats would you like?”

I say, “You have any with refried bean stains?”