Living the Good Life

[First, quick excuses: Work, work, work. But I want to blog consistently again, so here's a fresh start! To catch up on SOME things you've missed, check out my mom's blog! There are beach pictures!]

Recently Murray and I were talking about the fact that what we do doesn't require us to be anywhere specific geographically, as long as we can get a good internet connection. So that considered, why didn't we move somewhere more exotic for a couple years while we could! The trouble is: 1) I'm not adventurous like that, 2) I like to be near family, and 3) I'm not adventurous like that.

This Monday, Murray and I drove the Alpine Loop on a whim. Fall is by far my favorite season. I find it energizing! And I didn't want to miss the opportunity to get outside and see the beautiful fall leaves. So we packed up our little family, packed a picnic lunch, and headed out. The views and the colors were amazing, and it felt SO GOOD to be outside and doing something together as a family. We stopped at Cascade Springs to eat (no food down at the springs, so it was a parking lot picnic) and enjoyed the little hike to the springs. Again, it was beautiful, and everything felt incredibly fresh.

Gulliver loved being out on the trails and enjoyed looking for the grasshoppers. He brought two dinosaurs with him, so when we saw the grasshoppers, we had to stop and pretend that the dinosaurs were going to eat them, and that would make them jump. Great fun! All week, he's been talking about grasshoppers, dinosaurs, and the sleeping grasshopper (hint: it wasn't sleeping).

Junabun enjoyed the fresh air and the stroller ride, and I think she PARTICULARLY liked being taken OUT of the stroller to get some more personal attention.

After our jaunt at Cascade Springs, we started talking about all the wonderful things that surround us here in Utah, and decided that maybe it's wisest instead of moving away to seek a fun experience for a couple years, we should make a list of things to do here and actually do them! (This isn't the first time we had this idea... we thought about this a couple of years ago, but didn't do anything about it officially.)

So this week, I've had that in mind. Yesterday morning, Murray was working at home, and Junabun was napping. We haven't used our bikes all year. Or all last year. Or really more than once since we got married, if we're being totally honest. In fact, we had decided recently that we should probably just sell them. Well, instead I went out, pumped up the tires of Gulliver's Boot Scoot bike and pumped up the tires of my bike. We tried Gulliver's bike---which he loved---but his legs still are not quite long enough. So I put him on the high bar of my bike and we started riding around. What started out as a little ride around the parking lot turned into a ride of over an hour, and several miles! Gulliver enjoyed ringing the bike bell half the time, and we both enjoyed talking to one another. It was sweet to have him so close (he said, "I love you, Mumma" a dozen times) and to have a little date with him.

Today, we continued the trend of taking advantage of what we have here in Utah. We planned a fun trip to see Murray's sister's family in Moroni. It was so much fun! We prepared a healthy delicious lunch of Navajo tacos that was almost all carried away by flies (they were out in full force!). They allowed me to drive the Ranger (a cross between a four wheeler and a Jeep) up Maple Canyon with Murray and Gulliver. Gulliver loved it and kept pointing forward and yelling, "Gooooo!" He did NOT want to stop and look at the cows, he wanted to goooooo! (Murray, ever the protective father, urged me to not take the gradual turns at my reckless speed of 15 mph.)

After our little family spin, we went back to the cabin and loaded up everyone onto various vehicles and headed out again! This time even Junabun joined us (Murray, ever the protective father, made sure that both she and I were belted in). Murray, a little out of character for his artist personality, got his very own four-wheeler. After we were on the road, Gulliver looked back and gasped in admiration, "Daddy!" This time I was NOT driving, and we rode up very bumpy terrain. I think that both Gulliver and Junabun were thrilled!

During our ride, we went to an apple orchard where we were able to pick our own apples. Gulliver was at first interested in the ones on the ground (easy pickings!) until we told him those were yucky. After that, he'd just look at them and say, "Gross. Yucky." Sister M helped him to pick an apple from a tree and wipe it clean, and then he bit into his delicious treat! An apple just perfectly sized for him! I think that he ended up eating at least four! He decided he was a big big fan of the orchard.

But as good as the orchard was, nothing could prepare him for what was next. Murray's sister's family are turkey farmers, and they got a new batch of baby turkeys last week. So we took Gulliver to the turkey shed to see what he thought. I mostly expected him to be afraid, since he's going through a scaredy-cat phase lately where EVERYTHING is scary. Instead, he was SMITTEN with the baby turkeys and did not hesitate to want to touch one. At first he was very gentle and cautious, but he eventually became fairly confident... so we got him out of there before he could get TOO confident. He did NOT want to say goodbye to the baby turkeys (he saw a "sleeping" baby turkey, too... oh, when do we teach him about life and death??). But that's okay, because next on our whirlwind tour was seeing the BIG TURKEYS. We went to the big turkey shed, and unfortunately Gulliver seemed just as confident with these as he was with the babies... so needless to say, I didn't even let him NEAR them!

After saying goodbye to ALL the turkeys, it was time to head back to the cabin and order some pizza. What a good day! After pizza, we even enjoyed a bon fire and some star gazing (Gulliver, who LOVES to sing Happy Birthday, performed several rounds of the song and vigorously tried to blow out the fire).

What a perfect day! We are very grateful for our Moroni family for having us over and showing us a good time all day! I look forward to hearing what Gulliver has to say about everything tomorrow. Tonight, he was so tuckered out, that he only lasted about 3 minutes in the car. (After 2 minutes, he suddenly exclaimed, "Hat!!" and put his hands to his hatless head. I reassured him that we had his favorite hat, and pulled it out for him. He put it on and was asleep within about a minute.)

My Mountain Man

I promised you all that I'd share the tale of Murray the Mountain Man as soon as I had pictures, and now I have pictures!

As part of our family vacation two weeks ago, we spent a couple of nights at my sister-in-law's family cabin out in Weber County. The time spent at the cabin really helped us feel like we were actually getting away on vacation. No phones. No internet. It was blissful. Well, it was blissful for me, who stayed at the cabin at all times to gestate my fetus and to sometimes take care of my niece and nephew. Others had a less relaxing time, as they packed their days with rigorous, rugged activities. And where there was a mountain experience to be had, Murray was always at the front of the line volunteering.

Almost as soon as we arrived at the cabin, my dad and Captain Fabuloso got ready to go fishing. They invited Murray along and he readily accepted that invitation. Unfortunately he had the wrong footwear, so they outfitted him with a pair of cowboy boots and gave him a fishing hat to make him official. He proudly wore the fishing hat for the rest of his mountain activities to show the change from "City Murray" to "Mountain Man Murray."

Here's Murray and Dad and Captain F back with their catch. What a catch!!


Here's Murray cleaning the fish.


From this picture, I bet you can guess that Murray didn't participate in the licking of guts like El Senor did.


The next day, almost everyone went out on the horses, and Murray, who had never ridden a horse on his own before, also participated. Once again, I stayed home and gestated. Please note that he is still a mountain man because he is still wearing the mountain man hat.


During the horse ride, my sil told my mom about Jim Bridger's cabin, that was 3/4 the way up the mountain side. He'd built it with a couple of men who wanted to trap with him. They chose their strategic location because it was too steep for horses to access, and it would give them a lot of time to prepare in case Indians ever wanted to go after them. And to my understanding, the Indians were never that dumb anyway.

My mom absolutely wanted to hike to Jim Bridger's cabin herself, and Richie decided he'd go, too. Murray, not to be outdone by his mother-in-law (grandmother of 2.6), signed up for the adventure, too. My sil warned them again and again that it wasn't a nice little hike, and there was no trail, and that it was pretty awful. But the party insisted on finding the cabin, so we let them go.

Several hours later, they came back with their tale to tell. Richie was the only one who ever made it up to the cabin. By the time the mountain slope got to be about 80 degrees, my mom and Murray were exhausted and no longer really had the desire to conquer the mountain or see Jim Bridger's cabin. They'd been gone for hours, and the hike up to the cabin would take another hour at least, of simply scrambling up the mountainside.



The return trip wasn't as easy as they thought either, since the mountain was so steep. Mom and Murray came down the mountain mostly on their butts.


After his mountain adventure, though, I was able to care for and nuture my manly mountain man. He deserved all that pampering and more! I am now certain that if Murray and I were lost in the wilderness, he'd be prepared to take care of us and fight for our survival.

Cable Tales

One of the benefits of having a brother who is a cable installer is getting our cable on the main floor configured so that the TV can actually be on the wall I want it to be on.

Another benefit is being able to hear endless stories about other people's homes and other people's lives and other people's general disgustingness. The Boy has seen it all. In fact, he recently coined the term "Nerd Trash" which is a lot like white trash, but it's a person who lives in absolute squalor but whose rat nest is filled with all the latest technology: huge-screen television, dual 30-inch monitors, loads of computers and accessories, all the right gaming consoles. You get the idea. Nerd trash. I think it'll catch on.


Recently, The Boy, pictured here with his new fridge in his new house, went to install cable in a particular home. A very large woman was on the couch (he describes her as a whale, manateed out all over the couch, and although it's a mixed metaphor, I think it does the job). She was missing half her teeth. And as The Boy worked on her cable, her six children scurried around the filthy house.

Then, another woman---he assumes it was the manatee's sister---came into the house. She took one look at The Boy and said, "Let me guess. He's staying the night."

Wow. I mean, I don't want to think of a slew of men staying the night with this toothless manatee (point of interest: manatees regrow a tooth every time they lose one, so from an evolutionary standpoint, this woman may be slightly behind manatees), but why else would the sister jump to that conclusion. Ew.

Poor The Boy. In telling this story, he said, "I admit that I'm not the most handsome man on the planet, but I think this," (here he motioned to his face) "is worth at least a full set of teeth."

Interruptions

It all started with a text message.

The Boy: Showered, teeth brushed, hair done, and dressed?

Cicada: Showered (last night), teeth brushed, hair in bandanna, sweat pants. Life is good.

As I was musing upon the fact that I am so much more productive now that I have basically no interruptions during my workday, the doorbell rang. I am always fascinated when I'm home and the doorbell rings. It's like my house has this secret life that I've never known about where people come over during the day, ring my doorbell, and don't leave a note. I had to know who was there.

I opened the door, and there stood The Boy (who lives in Salt Lake, and I live in Springville, so this wasn't quite expected). Pretty much the first thing he said was that we clearly don't like to deal with wasps nests, and pointed out the two obvious ones above our door.

I came outside to see everything more clearly and said, "Those are unoccupied, but this one has some activity," and I pointed to the wasp's nest near an electrical outlet. The Boy said, "Well that's easy to take care of" and promptly kicked the plastic covering on the electrical outlet.

I screamed.

And then I scurried to the door.

And I tried to open it.

But I failed.

Because I had locked myself out.

[I got into the habit of locking my door at all times in college, and now I can't open my door without immediately locking it again unconsciously.]

So there I was, locked outside with my little brother. At least I was showered and my teeth were brushed. But I was wearing a bandanna, sweatpants, and no shoes.

(Barefoot and pregnant? Yes and yes.)

Well, so much for my productive day without interruptions. Instead of visiting inside the house, The Boy and I enjoyed one another's company on our ride to Murray's work to pick up his copy of the house key. But hey, I saw a bald eagle for the first time in Utah on our way, so I'm thinking there might have been a divine hand in all of this after all.

(Safely back at home, in front of the computer.)

Happy May Run!

This weekend, back in my homeland of Timmins, this is the May Run weekend. It's not May Run in many other places, really. It's very distinct to Timmins. Most of the rest of Canada celebrates this holiday as Victoria Day weekend. But to Timmins and to me, it will always be May Run.

Or, if you will, it is also sometimes referred to as May Two-Four. What does two-four refer to? Why, that's a 24-case of beer, of course. And what does beer have to do with Victoria Day weekend? If you're in Timmins, the answer is everything.

May Run is the weekend where you go out and camp in the bush (forest) with your friends and get drunk. Teen pregnancy and drunk driving accidents skyrocket during this weekend.

Back when I was in high school, I was chosen along with a classmate to write and present a skit about teen pregnancy and spend a day presenting it from classroom to classroom. It was moving, I'm telling you. I awkwardly sat beside this pimply boy and told him that I was pregnant. When he said, "But I thought you said you were on the pill," I said, "I only told you that because I thought you wouldn't want me otherwise." Then I broke down crying. I'm sure that we convinced pretty much everyone not to have sex that weekend. That's how good we were.

In fact, it was all pretty much like this scene from Freaks and Geeks. Please watch it, and remember: drink responsibly, don't drink and drive, and don't have unprotected sex.

Do I have to?

"Great works are performed, not by strength but perseverance . . . . He that shall walk with vigour three hours a day will pass in seven years a space equal to the circumference of the globe."
--Samuel Johnson

I hate this quote, too. It seems to me that he's saying that persistent amounts of small work will lead to great results. But walking "with vigor" for three hours a day? That's not a little work.

Right now, I'm commuting for 2.5 hours, four days a week, and that is enough to almost deplete me of my will to live. And you want to know how long it will be till I've traveled the circumference of the globe? It'll be 4.6 years. And I won't have gotten anywhere, either. Just back and forth to and from Salt Lake and Springville 242 times.

You depress me, Samuel J.

Editor's Intervention

Well, Murray and I are back! The honeymoon was great; I can't wait to blog about it. First, I'll see if Nemesis wants to post her side of the story about the reception before I write about the reception from my perspective.

Great job to Daltongirl and Nemesis, by the way, for keeping you all updated, and doing all my work for me while I was gone. The first thing Murray and I did upon landing on American soil was check the blog to see what these wonderful ladies had posted. However, it has come to my attention that a certain error must be addressed in Daltongirl's wonderful and mostly-accurate account of the reception. I received the following email from The Boy last night. Many apologies to him and to El Senor who less dramatically complained about being somewhat misrepresented. In my version of the reception, both of these brothers and every individual who helped out will be appropriately lauded.



I am being grievously misrepresented on your blog. There must be steps taken to rectify this libel which has befallen me.

For clarification: I was in no way, shape, or form responsible for the care of one Bean at any time during the day of nuptiality (I am aware of the insuitability of this particular suffixation, but it sounds ever so much superior to the drap and overrused "nuptials"), nor was I enrolled in the creation of fun and unique aprons to be worn by conscripted wait staff. Instead I was tasked with guiding Richie (tragically born without a sense of direction) around in the pursuit of fruit. And large pans. A task given us by our beloved Ootsie, and dashingly performed in our wedding tuxes.

This restitution may take place in the form of posting this email on your blog. Which is more than I ever willingly granted you to post on your blog when we were living together, as if my permission mattered anyhow.

-The Boy, Esq.

(I may add that all of the emails The Boy sent me on my mission were written in his same unique writing style, and I really wish he'd start a blog or something of his own.)

Not a Sleuth

The Clipper has been caught. Or not "caught" so much as "turned himself in."

Really, it got to the point where I was starting to doubt my own sanity. I wondered if I had done it mindlessly. But this morning, as Squirrel Boy and I mused again over who might be the Clipper, I put binder clips on some more utensils and decided that no, it was too deliberate to be mindless. Someone else had to have done it. But who?

There are few people (okay, so one person) who I could really see coming into my office and opening my drawer. That is Squirrel Boy. We've been friends for years. He can get away with opening my drawer. I just couldn't see any of my other coworkers targeting me, coming into my office, opening my drawer, and psychologically terrorizing me by clipping my key chain and plastic knives.

This morning, I saw The Boy come on google talk for the first time ever. And this is how the conversation went:

11:06 AM The Boy: So it took you that long?

me: what took me that long?

11:07 AM The Boy: Overestimation is as equally dangerous as underestimation.

I take it you don't often use your knives.

me: I don't get what you're saying.

Are you sure you're saying this to me?

Or do you think you're talking to Chris?

The Boy: Quite. I'm just being cryptic.

11:08 AM me: Yes, you are.

Too cryptic.

The Boy: Paper Clips.

me: YOU!

YOU!!!!

The Boy: Or binder clips, should I say.

me: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

The Boy: I did that when we went to Lagoon.

11:09 AM me: I was starting to think that I'd gone crazy and it was actually ME!!!!

The Boy: I put a clip in your keychain, and put them on several knives. And only the knives.

me: I KNOW!

The Boy: That was what? Three weeks ago? Two?

me: So I thought they were two separate events.

11:10 AM The Boy: I cried when I read that blog post.

So very proud of myself.

So two weeks ago, The Boy, Murray, and I went to Lagoon for a corporate event. While we waited for Murray to come so we could carpool, The Boy hung out with me in my office. Obviously I left him alone long enough to do this horrible thing to me.

So I'm not a sleuth. First of all, when I found the binder clip on my key chain (likely the next day) I was sure that it could have only happened that day. I was sure that I would have noticed it if it had been there before. That was my first mistake. Secondly, two weeks later when I found the binder clips on my knives, I was convinced that they hadn't been there that morning. Such a wrong assumption.

From this I conclude:

1) No one at work is as fun or funny as The Boy.
2) I should never be trusted as an eye-witness of a crime because obviously I get all my details wrong. This is ironic since I've been subpoenaed as a witness twice in my life (but never had to testify).
3) Simple psychological terror like this is almost enough to make me believe I've gone crazy. I'm an easy target.

CASE CLOSED

Oliver Lincoln Noodlemeyer

What are little siblings for if not to torment?

The Boy had the sorry lot of being the last of all us kids. He also ended up with the genes that make him particularly targetable for teasing. It's an unfortunate combination, really, that makes it possible to tease him for the same exact thing for years and years while consistently getting the same insolent reaction.

Take Burger King for example. On a road trip almost ten years ago, we were ready to stop and get some food. Dad didn't want what the rest of us wanted, so without announcing what he was doing, he decided to go through the Burger King drive-thru to get his meal, then drive us to the fast food restaurant that we wanted. As we approached Burger King and it became apparent that that's where we were going, The Boy became suddenly vocal, announcing repeatedly that he couldn't eat at Burger King: "I can't eat at Burger King. Burger King makes me sick." His repetition of this fact became more frequent and more urgent the closer we got to Burger King until Dad finally lost it and explained angrily that only he would be getting Burger King food. The rest of us could get what we wanted.

To this day, any time Burger King is mentioned around The Boy, one of the siblings invariably says, "I can't eat Burger King. Burger King makes me sick." This would irritate The Boy so much, despite the fact that it happened almost a decade ago. But recently The Boy told us that the Burger King teasing doesn't bother him as much anymore. Did he finally get over it? No. Burger King was replaced by Dirt Roadities.

I have already told this story once on my blog. At the time, I didn't realize that it would become such great teasing fodder. Two summers ago, The Boy, Mishkin, and I were trying to get to our sister-in-law's cabin using directions that The Boy had written down. It just happened that where we got lost, the direction that The Boy had written down was "dirt roadities." At the time, I'm sure he thought he was being funny, but as we were lost on "dirt roadities" with no cell reception for about an hour, the funniness of "dirt roadities" soon wore off.

Two years later, it persists as the best way to tease The Boy. All you have to do is say "dirt roadities" and he gets angry and annoyed. (If only he figured out that the key to not getting teased so much is to not get annoyed so easily...)

There are other things we can use to tease, too, though, and today as I was researching sports for work, I came across OLN, which always makes me think of Oliver Lincoln Noodlemeyer.

See, both The Boy and El Senor were living with Captain Fabuloso and Captain Mom for a few months while they were between apartments. The Boy was adjusting to his new job as a Comcast cable guy. He still loves the job and is still full of all sorts of information about cable and networks. One day as El Senor and The Boy were watching OLN (Outdoor Life Network---now known as Versus), The Boy asked, "Do you know who owns OLN?" The answer, of course, was Comcast. But El Senor didn't miss a beat and said, "Oliver Lincoln Noodlemeyer." The Boy, slightly confused, said, "Well, I don't know the specific names of the people involved, but I'm pretty sure that Comcast owns it."

So now, between a little Burger King and a little dirt roadities, we thrown in some Oliver Lincoln Noodlemeyer for good measure.

**I probably got the details slightly wrong on the Oliver Lincoln Noodlemeyer, but if El Senor or The Boy want to correct me, they're welcome to make corrections in the comments.

Weekend Highlights

On Friday, we went up to my sister-in-law's family cabin. I don't know if it's a ranch or a cabin or a lodge---I was explaining to Mishkin, who came with us, that back home, there are cottages and there are camps and there are cabins. Cabins are for skiing. Camps are for hunting. Cottages are vacation homes at the lake. Miskin says that here, cabins don't have a lot of land, whereas ranches have land. I don't know what the definition of a lodge is. I don't know if s-i-l's edifice qualifies as a ranch---it has lots of land, but no cows. But it has horses. Anyway.

We were discussing this as we were driving out. We left Provo after 8:00 and s-i-l's directions to get there were perfect. I was worried that with my terrible navigating abilities, I'd get us lost. We were doing great until the directions (as dictated by s-i-l and transcribed by The Boy) said, "Weber Canyon Road... dirt roadities." Now, The Boy added the "-ities" onto "dirt road" for humor purposes, but as he's going 60 miles per hour in a 45 zone with no lights and curvy, twisting roads, and we have no idea how "Weber Canyon Road" is related to "dirt road," and I was trying to search the completely black and invisible surroundings for a dirt road, it was funny. In fact, it was aggravating every time I looked down at the paper, searching for some inspiration. Dirt roadities. I was sitting there, as we were turning around and retracing our route, only to find that we couldn't even find where we had come from, wondering if Mishkin had silently given up all hope of ever making it out to the cabin/lodge/ranch. We had no cell reception and no way to contact anyone who might be able to help us. Finally, we found a house that had lights on and asked for help. They offered us their phone and we tried to call the cabin/lodge/ranch number, but it was disconnected. The obliging couple then gave us sketchy directions that eventually did lead us to the dirt road (apparently Weber County Road turns into the dirt road). On the dirt road, we came across Brother 1 and s-i-l, who had come out to try and look for us.

After what seemed like an eternity on the dirt roadity in the dark (suddenly "dirt roadities" wasn't so obnoxious) we made it to the edifice-of-an-unknown-specification. The stars were amazing---it was hard to actually see constellations because so many smaller stars appeared.

After talking for a while with everyone (s-i-l, The Boy, Brother 1, and Mishkin) we all went to bed. There was limited bedspace, so The Boy and I had to share a bed. It's okay, though, because it was a king bed, so I hardly even knew he was there. Imagine my surprise, though, when I woke up not with The Boy at my side but with Brother 2! (My mom tells me that that's gross to even say because it all sounds so incestuous.) Brother 2 had arrived at 2:00 in the morning.

We didn't actually have much time on Saturday for ranchy activities since we had to get back in time for The Boy to go to a work meeting at 3:00 (which meant we had to leave at 1:00). But we had time enough for me and Mishkin to go exploring (which means that we walked on this uneven stones and I almost twisted my ankle beside a river, and we walked through a field that was being watered by sprinklers and we didn't even have the guts to run through the sprinklers) and time for a short horseback ride. This was better than my horseback ride from last year which scared me almost enough to never want to get on a horse again. This time, s-i-l didn't make me gallop or trot or anything. Phew!

We drove back into town and as if Mishkin and I hadn't already spent enough time together, we decided to go to DI and Target. I didn't find anything particularly exciting at either store. Later, Nemesis and I went to see Fantastic 4. It wasn't the best movie I've seen all year, but it was at the dollar theater and I didn't even pay Nemesis back, so I can't complain.

Then, not only did Nemesis pay for my movie, but she dropped off goods at my house---kitchenwares that I can babysit while she's in England---including a big ole' glass jar for punch that I've been coveting ever since I saw it at her swap meet.

And that's the weekend update.

Oh wait! One last gem from the weekend. When I asked The Boy if he was packed, he said," Cicada, we're only going till tomorrow at three. I don't need to pack anything."

Me: Uhhh... what about a toothbrush?

Boy: We're going to be back home at three tomorrow. I don't need a toothbrush.

Me: Boy, that's a night and a morning!

Boy: I'll live.

Me: But what about the rest of us who have to be around you??

He brought the toothbrush. Now, whether he used it or not, we don't know. And any of my former roommates/companions will read this story and think me a hypocrite because they know that I rarely brush my teeth or take off my makeup at night but to miss a morning! It's unthinkable!