family Archives - Michele Miles Gardiner Writes

Vintage postcard of Cal-Neva hotel in Tahoe, where Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe, etc., liked to visit

Cal-Neva CATastrophe

Published by Michele Miles Gardiner on June 17, 2018

Why did I cancel our reservations I made at Cal-Neva, Tahoe, back in 2007? I asked Ian, my husband, the other day. Neither of us could remember. Then I found this old blog post I wrote:

Ian walked into our living room and found our kitten, June, choking. He yelled to me, “The cat’s choking on her toy!” The toy’s a little fuzzy pom pom with a mouse face on it and a string of yarn with a bell on the end for the tail.

I ran into the room to see Ian sticking his fingers down the kitty’s throat, trying to pull out the toy. I jumped in and performed some kitty Heimlich thrusts with my thumbs. Nothing! So I, too, stuck my fingers down her throat. What do you know. She didn’t like that. Not at all. So she ravaged my hand with her little kitty teeth and claws.

With my bloody hand I grabbed my car keys and with the other hand I grasped the kitten, and ran to the car. Our daughter ran behind. We sped to an emergency vet down the street. The kitten was still breathing. Great. But the the object would be speeding its way down her stomach. We needed to move fast

Stupid emergency vet. He couldn’t see the kitty toy on June’s x-ray. So, in a huff, my daughter and I sped her over to a more trustworthy vet. We told them about the silly vet who couldn’t see the mass. They nodded their heads in sympathy, served us chai tea lattes (This is LA, after all) and reasoned the best we could do would be an endoscopy (put a tube with a camera into her stomach) to find the object and pull it out. So June would need to stay for the over night procedure.

1:35 am – My phone rang. I knew it’d be the vet. My heart raced.

Me: Hello? How’s my kitten?

Vet: Sorry.

Me: Excuse me. (My heart dropped)

Vet: Sorry, you cut out…what did you say?

Me: My kitty, how is she?

Vet: Uh, fine. But we can’t see any object other than food in her stomach.

6:30am – I left to pick up our kitten. She needed be taken, with catheter in tow, to our regular vet for further examination.

7:15 am – June the kitten – who the last vet assistant lovingly referred to as “Butthead” for her obstinate personality (it runs in the family) – and I drove (well, I did the driving and the kitten ran around the car clawing at her head cone) toward our vet. Maybe, I thought, the object was lodged too far down?

7:20 am – My cell phone rang. I pulled over from driving and dug my phone out of my purse.

Me: Yeah.

Ian: I found the toy.

Me: You WHAT?!

Yep, the kitten never swallowed the toy. We suspected her tooth was just caught on her too large collar (which my daughter said in the beginning) and so it looked like she was gagging.

I said to Ian, after realizing we now could not afford to go on vacation, due to the cost of this fiasco, “Hey, don’t worry. Let’s move forward. Think of it as making a deposit in your karma bank.”

I really wanted to believe that, because a week in Tahoe would’ve been a lot of fun. Anyway, apologies to the vet we found to be lacking in medical knowledge. I guess that degree on your wall does mean something after all. (*A few years later, Cal-Neva would close. Turns out June saved us from a nightmare. Read this man’s review of Cal-Neva.)

*In my previous post, “Wedding vs Marriage,” this could be added to my suggested wedding vows:

Our kitten before the catastrophe — Our kitten June, we then called June Carter CASH, due to how much she cost us.

I (provide name) promise to stick with you even if you imagine our kitten is choking on her toy, which then causes hours of chaos and drama so expensive, we can no longer afford to go on vacation.

Oh well, June AND Ian are worth it.

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Growing up in the 1960s & Beyond, “Craving Normal,” by Michele Miles Gardiner

Published by Michele Miles Gardiner on June 4, 2018

“Craving Normal,” my stories as a child growing up in the 1960s and beyond, will be available soon. Here’s my nearly complete book cover. Think I’ll keep “Enthusiastic quote goes here.”

“Craving Normal,” by Michele Miles Gardiner – back book cover text:
Living in a rock hut on a nude beach, staying in a religious commune,
facing an angry man with a gun, riding camels, hiding her freaky health
food lunches from lucky Twinkie eaters – Michele didn’t experience any
of this when her family lived in the suburbs of San Francisco. Then came
the counterculture revolution. Her entire life changed: Michele’s young
parents sold their home, bought a car and trailer over-seas and took her
and her little sister to explore the world.

We know a lot about the “flower children,” but what does an actual child
growing up in that era have to say? While many tales about that revolutionary time
are on record, few come from the perspective of the children who lived it.
This collection of stories are from one child’s perspective – tales of
becoming a young adult whose brain, and life, transformed from her early
experiences. Rebelling by cheer-leading, eating junk food, attending honor
roll parties, dreaming of being a foxy stewardess/actress? Lame, sure.
But how else does a child of young parents of the wild Sixties generation
rebel? By countering the counterculture.

Michele’s collection of stories – in which she rarely takes herself too
seriously – span from her earliest memories of the suburbs (her idea of
“normal”), through growing up trying to find a place where she fits in, once
again. Does she find it? Is Hollywood a sane place to search for normalcy?

“Craving Normal” trailer here: https://youtu.be/Z0M1BTXK20Q

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Why Is My Book Called “Craving Normal”?

Published by Michele Miles Gardiner on August 3, 2017

Hey, wanna see some photos I’ll have in my book, “Craving Normal”? Here’s one. Consider this photo (Dad and me) is from the time in my life I refer to as the “normal” period, and you might understand the thesis of my book. This was an ordinary day in my life. But It just got weirder from here. So please feel free to share your own freaky childhood photo or less than typical memory in the comments below. Pleeeeeease. Come on! I can’t be the only one.

Well, now that you’re here, I’ll let you know more about my book, “Craving Normal.” I do have a thesis: Born into a relatively calm period in the mid 1960s, which I considered “normal” – right before the explosion of the counterculture movement – I watched and experienced my world change. Language, music, fashion, lifestyles, ideas and expectations changed faster than we could toss out my slinky and turn on a lava lamp. While this period in history is often spoken about by the young adults of that era, a.k.a “flower children,” I write from MY perspective, that of a child, a REAL child. I like to think that’s one thing which make my stories unique. What were we kids thinking? What were our experiences? My stories then follow my growing up in the shadow of all these changes. While many are quite goofy, they show how I bopped around the world, a world I was still trying to figure out on my own – just as the generation before me tried to figure it out. But I also try to bring humor to all these experiences, whenever I can.

Like this photo I posted, I mean, how can I not look back and laugh? Seriously, this was just a typical day in my young life, one I thought completely ordinary. Why not? What else did I know? And I sure didn’t know things would get even more colorful… real soon.
If you’d like to keep updated about the progress of my up coming book, please leave your email here.

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Tag: family

Cal-Neva CATastrophe

Growing up in the 1960s & Beyond, “Craving Normal,” by Michele Miles Gardiner

Why Is My Book Called “Craving Normal”?

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