199

I haven't thought about this for years, and I thought I would share the story with you today.  Jake was talking about how he had "almost bowled 200" when he went bowling with friends from school last Thursday.  (Mental note, teach Jake how to "round up" properly.)  He was a wee bit away from 200 but it made me remember when I almost bowled a 200 myself.  But to tell you that story I have to tell you about my last memory of my grandfather.

My sister, brother, and I were out being big shots.  I think it was the first time we were this far away from home, together, without meeting our parents somewhere.  We were in our late teens or maybe even early twenties.  I don't remember why we were away but we were and we were relatively close to my grandparents' house in Fresno.  I remember it like I am there now.  The house across from the school on Blackstone.  The kitchen off to the right of the front door.  The sunken living room with the odd floor length structural shelf running about eight feet off the ground that at one point had a painting of a black panther on it..but not now.  The painting was my aunt and uncle's.  The giant HiFi in its wooden cabinet (that's a gigantic iPod for all you youngsters) playing elevator music that was a story in itself.  My grandmother fussing in the kitchen making us a meal for lunch.  Finally, there was Grandpa sitting at the far end of the table.

Grandpa had been slowing down a lot lately.  He had given up his car years ago.  Their many yearly vacations had ended too.  Groceries were being delivered rather than going out.  He was an avid bowler.  On a league with the same people for a very long time.  And yet, he had given that up as well.  He actually gave me his four-holed bowling ball at one point.  Always someone who had story after story to tell, today he sat at the far end of the table silently.  We all said hello but I am not sure grandpa did much more than look our way.  Our usually gregarious patriarch was content to just sit, listen, and eat.  Grandma kept the conversation going today.  We talked about what we were doing in our lives of school and work.  None of us commented on how odd it was to have a silent grandfather at the table.  I was saddened by what was happening but would never have been so rude as to talk about someone as if they weren't there.  Even if, in reality, it was obvious that he wasn't really one hundred percent there with us.

Grandpa had Alzheimers and it was robbing him of himself and robbing us of his personality and his stories.  Truth be told, any one of us could have started any number of his stories and stopped mid-sentence only to have another pick it up and continue on to the end without skipping a beat we had heard them all so many times.  About how he lost his dad as a boy.  About how he was replaced by a computer the size of a building and that let him have early retirement.  About how his sister embarrassed him on his way to work one day when she yelled out his nickname, "BABE!" on the cable car.  He could make me laugh by telling me just the punchline to a joke we had heard a thousand times before.  "I said LEFT!" was a favorite.  Today, nothing.

We all ate, I think it was soup and sandwiches but I will defer to my sister if she says I am wrong, and we weren't planning on staying for the night since that would have been a burden on Grandma.  And since we had a ways to go before we got home, we started to make motions like we were getting ready to go.  It was a process.  It has often been said that our family is the clan of the half-hour good byes.  We say we have to go...then talk some more.  We joke that we already said we were going to go...then talk some more.  We start to move toward the door...then we talk some more.  We go stand next to the cars...then talk some more.  My cousin Kim once told me, when my dad and I built a retaining wall around our front yard, that it would be the kiss of death as goodbyes go.  She said not only do we linger longer than anyone else in recorded history, now we have provided benches next to the cars!

Today we sat at the kitchen table sensing that the stand and chat by the door portion of our good bye would be minus a member.  It finally came down to the part where we finally put our hands on the table to start to get up when I remembered.  "OH!"  I said.  "Grandpa!  I meant to tell you!" I was a six year old again telling that I had seen a frog in the back yard.  "With your bowling ball!  I bowled my best game ever!  I bowled a 199!!"

With that news he started moving.  He never looked at me but put his hands on the arms of the chair and started to rise.  It looked to be considerable effort and it took him quite a while.  He raised slower than anyone I had ever seen and I was motionless.  When he was fully standing he reached out his arm and extended his hand.  I grabbed it and he shook it strongly, never saying a word.  And then he started the long process of sitting down.  We said our good byes to Grandma and we all left.  I never saw Grandpa again.  I also never got to break the elusive 200 mark on bowling.  That's OK.  If 199 is good enough for Grandpa, it's good enough for me.

Registry Follies!

I am colorblind.  Not in a politically correct I-see-no-color-I-only-see-people sort of way.  More in a hey-is-that-light-red-or-green sort of way.  Because color is not my strong suit I honestly have no favorite.  I absolutely hate when people ask me what my favorite color is and then get angry when I say that I have none.  I have actually had people argue with me that I 'had' to have a favorite and to just 'tell them!'  Sorry, no good.

If you pinned me down and threatened to not let me have any dessert I suppose I would tell you that my favorite color for cars is white...because they stay clean.  My favorite color for houses is tan...because I like houses that look earthy.  My favorite color of lumber is brown...because it is brown.  Beyond that, it is really a case of it doesn't really matter.  I know that Sylvia's favorite color is green, but when I buy clothes for her I end up in the store asking complete strangers, "What color is this?" and then adding quickly, "My WIFE likes green." So they don't think I am some kind of moron using the world's worst pick-up-line.  (Honestly, I have never ever used any kind of a pick up line...ever!  I'm kind of proud of that!...even if I am a moron.)

I mention this about not being able to see colors primarily so I could tell you a story.  A friend is getting married and she posted on Facebook that she and her fiance are trying to register online and that they are going to have to go into the store since it was kind of boring doing it at home.  That comment reminded me of the time that Sylvia and I registered for our wedding gifts.

There we were, in the middle of Macy's, a salesperson shadowing our every decision...and a wall of towels.  I'm not even halfway kidding...it was seriously a giant monument of absorption!  There were two Swiss yodelers wearing lederhosen and carrying ropes and canteens about to scale this thing.  I had been in department stores before but I had never really thought about buying a towel.  They were always in the hall closet.  I thought they just grew up out of the wooden shelves.  Even when I moved into my own apartment I went shopping at the store of 'Mom' and had all the towels I could ever need.  Now, not only did I need to tackle the terrycloth, I had to choose the "right" one.  Oh and believe me, there was a right one.  I didn't know that at the time, but there was a right one.

I remember like it was yesterday...Sylvia held up two towels that were identical in style, softness, and (as far as I knew) color.  She asked, "Which one do you like?"  Being the evolved male that I was I said, "I don't care."  Now more enlightened men than myself, who are reading this, are screaming, "ROOKIE MISTAKE!" at their computer monitors.  I need to explain that what I actually meant was, "Those towels look like they are the same in everything except color so I will let you choose since I can make no discernible distinction between the two...Buttercup."  What Sylvia heard was, "I do not now, nor will I ever, care about anything at all in our relationship from this day forth!"  (Apparently weddings are a bit more stressful for the bride than they are for the groom)  A chill grew over the department.  Off in the distance I heard the deep bass of the Jaws theme playing.  Of course if a giant shark actually showed up it would have just flopped around on bone-dry ground since there were enough towels to soak up the Pacific!  It took a bit of explaining on my part to get my lovely bride to see that I just couldn't tell the difference between towel A and towel B and it would be OK for her to choose.  She chose.  We registered for towels.  We moved on.

Then we came to the China patterns.  There was no chill in this department.  Customers were not rushing their small children out of the way as tumbleweeds rolled by.  I actually had opinions here!  We both decided that perfectly round was boring.  We chose the ones with slight points around the edge.  We both liked the gold rimmed sets. Neither one of us wanted plain white...there had to be some decoration on them.  We narrowed it down to two different sets, and one of them was green!  I deferred to Sylvia's favorite color and we chose.  Voila!  It can be done!  And just so I can get back into the good graces of the women who are reading, with utter contempt that I could be so insensitive, I not only know that we chose Fairchild but that we did not choose Kelly!  If I remember correctly, they were actually both green, but Kelly was a little darker and I couldn't envision it on our table at holidays.

The day went on.  I always had an opinion from then on.  I was wrong often, but I had an opinion.  We chose great wine glasses.  (I think there was a 'star' or 'icicle' in their name) We chose silver and a beautiful box for it to go in.  We chose things that I didn't even know existed in the realm of kitchenware but we had to have since it matched our set.  We were gravy boating and dish chafing.  We decided that we might actually need a device that injected flavor into a roast.  (thankfully nobody got us one of those...think of the comedy routines my twisted mind would have come up with!)  We moved along quite nicely...until we came to the butter dish.

Our set, (did I mention that it was Fairchild?), did not have a matching butter dish!  I screamed, "Well you could have told us that before we started!  Now we're back to square one!"  (OK so maybe it is a little stressful for the groom as well.)  We decided to look at non-matching, non-China butter dishes.  (the HORROR!)  Unlike the wall-O-towels, butter dishes were a rare commodity.  We wandered around aimlessly and found out that 'Kelly' actually did have one.  No, we decided, no looking back.  I asked the clerk to just show us anything that didn't look like it was formed from an old Cool Whip container and we would choose.  The clerk took us to the butter dish showroom and I fell in love.

There, on a spinning turntable (not really) was the butter dish of my dreams!  It was crystal!  The outside edge matched the edge of our plates!  The pattern in the crystal was similar to our glasses!  It was substantial.  It was awesome!  I yelled out, "That's it!  I really like this butter dish!"  No hesitation!  No glances at Sylvia to see what my answer should be.  I made a decision!  Sylvia picked it up, turned it over and over, kicked the tires, checked under the hood...and declared that it was really a great butter dish!  And then in true wedding-registry-frenzy style, she said, "Let's see if there's one better."

I'm happy to announce that we survived the day.  We did actually buy that butter dish.  And it took us no less than an hour and a half to choose the garbage can that would live next to our kitchen cabinets...but it really is a nice garbage can!

Abstinence: 101

With a title like, "Abstinence: 101" it is difficult to think of a first line.  Everything that I was thinking about writing sounded like the set-up lines for a series of crude "that's what she said" sorts of jokes.  Having said that, I want to assure you that I am simply writing today in order to be a benefit to society as a whole...and to make an obscenely large quantity of money.

I have never made it a secret that I am only writing in order to become rich and famous.  Oh sure, entertaining people is nice but Papa needs a new pair of shoes!  As of now, a year and a half since I began, I have made nearly twenty eight dollars.  Well technically I have nearly twenty eight dollars waiting patiently for me in an account that only generates checks when the total reaches $100.  But my three hundred and fifty year plan to become remarkably wealthy is coming along nicely!  (three weeks ahead of schedule I might add!)

Actually, I did have a hope for making a bit of money once and as odd as it sounds, the entire family being incredibly sick last week made me remember it...vividly!  I was once again the last man standing in a house full of sick people and the last time that happened I concocted a crazy plan.  I have told this old-time plan to a few people in my day and one of them said that it was the funniest thing that she had ever heard.  So here we are.

Way back when, when the kids were really little, another virus swept through the house.  It hit everyone...except me.  Sylvia was down.  Kristiana and Jacob were miserable.  I was exhausted.  And then 'it' happened.  In order to try to protect the kids I will not explain exactly which one 'it' happened to but I do need to go into a little detail.  I will just say that the kids were both old enough to get up and toddle off to the bathroom by themselves but, of course, when you are sick, all bets are off.  

It was late, I had probably been in bed for about an hour or so when I heard 'it.'  Any parent can tell you that there is a sound that will call you back from blissful REM sleep in an instant.  One of the kids was getting sick.  I wasn't even lucky enough, at this point, to lie there, fingers crossed, as we waited to hear, "....mommmmmeeeeeee!!"   Where I would then grin to myself, roll over, and give God a mental high-five for making "nurturer" be a large part of the female job description.  Honestly though Sylvia and I have a pretty good system and we were about 50/50 for when the kids would call out for either Sylvia or me.  No such luck tonight.  There was no way Sylvia was getting out of bed.  And if she tried to go take care of this particular situation, even on her best night, let's just say I would have been cleaning up a little more than usual.

Up I went.  Down the hall.  Into the room.  I heard, "I got sick." and then tears.  

"Don't worry sweetie (No gender clues here...they are both sweeties to me.  Especially when they are sick.) Daddy'll take care of it."

I did quite a bit of triage and was able to, with an ample supply of baby wipes and new jammies, get the poor dear into a newly sheeted bed.  Then my real work began.  

I bundled up the laundry and carried it to the kitchen.  I silently cursed, in an envious way, the people who have those large, deep, rectangular white utility sinks in their garages because I am convinced that this was truly what they were designed for.  And then I put the pile of bedding on the floor because I had mistakenly told myself, "I am exhausted, I will just do the dishes in the morning.  I need some sleep."  Now I not only had a situation that I needed to take care of, I had a situation that I needed to take care of before I could take care of the other situation.  It was a situation-full night.  I did what every red-blooded American man would do in this situation. I ripped off my shirt to show the giant "S" on my red and blue superhero suit! (internally)  Problem is, externally that action looked very similar to someone plopping down in a kitchen chair and putting his head in his hands.  In the desperate sleep deprived and slightly nauseated state I hate to admit but I did think, "I don't remember signing up for this."  And then it hit me.  THIS is what people don't know!  Hey!  I should fix that!

Not being known for thinking the same way as, well, anyone else in the universe, I decided to document my dilemma.  Yes, I grabbed the video camera.  Sylvia and I bought a video camera to capture life moments of the kids to show them later.  I thought this was one for the library.  Actually, what I thought was, if I could show this to all the teens in the world they would never have sex again.  I know, I know, quite a leap from doing laundry to abstinence but let's see if I can explain.

I set up the camera and started taping.  I was just narrating the whole time, telling what I experienced, as I took care of business.  I wasn't trying to be funny.  I was trying to be informative.  I grew up in the "Scared Straight" generation.  I saw what happened when they took troubled kids to prisons and had the prisoners tell them how it really was.  It scared the snot out of them.  I wanted to do the same thing...on a different level.  

I remember pointing in the air to try to show where the date and time would be in the corner of the TV screen.  I explained that everyone in the house was sick and that, even though I had just gone to bed a little while ago and needed to go to work in a few hours, I was up at this awful hour doing something that I never ever imagined myself doing...because I was a parent. I couldn't even see doing this for myself!  You see...I have yet to mention the punchline to my misery.  (Let me see how I can describe this without everyone yelling, "WHOA!!" and clicking away to check their e-mails.)  When a youngster gets sick stomach muscles contract to force the offending matter the opposite way up the throat.  These same muscles, as it turns out, are used to go to the bathroom.  In the case of a very young child who may not recognize that they were about to get sick...both actions may occur simultaneously.  Yup, you guessed it.  Both ends, as they say. 

I, in the interest of realism with a dash of sensationalism, described what I was going through in as painstaking detail as I could.  I didn't want to be gross but I did want to change kids' perceptions about having babies.  The way I saw it was that dolls that we give girls rarely cry, they never keep you from sleeping (unless they are named Chucky), and they never ever smelled like this!  I pointed out that I was using hot water and there was steam coming up from the sink.  I said something like, "Just imagine that this is stink you can see.  You can't even imagine what this smells like."  I also figured that when teens babysit or see their younger cousins it is always for a set period of time, it was generally not when they were sick, and there was always someone else who was ultimately responsible.  Not when you have your own child.  As my old boss used to say when assigning tasks or blame..."You're it baby!"  I ended my taping with some sort of closing that stated, "If you think this is gross or if you think that you wouldn't be able to handle this...don't do the activity that might make children be your responsibility!"

In the back of my mind I had worked it all out.  Sylvia would continue to pester Oprah until she finally created  the "Best Husband In The World" award, I would go on the show to accept my prize, and I would mention that I had this tape in my possession.  She would offer me thirty thousand dollars for it.  Sylvia and I could then afford to take the kids to Germany to meet their relatives.  I would be famous.  And on the back of my first book, under the picture of me holding a bubble blowing pipe and wearing a burgundy smoking jacket, it would say, "Jeff Garrett, sick kid laundry guy."

I think you know that it didn't happen quite that way.  Sylvia's innumerable pleas to create that award fell on deaf ears in Oprahland.  I was never on her show.  And I have a tape that is sitting in my closet that I couldn't even send to America's Funniest Videos because everything is digital now.  I suppose I could download it, somehow, to YouTube, and it would go viral, but since people on there only seem to seek to ridicule in their comments, I would not want to bring that kind of negative publicity to my poor kids.  I would however be willing to sell it to someone who offered me fifty thousand dollars (inflation).  The way I figure it, the kids could deal with a little ridicule while riding around in Daddy's new truck!  

Happy Birthday Sylvia!!

I am the luckiest man on Earth!  At the risk of sounding like I am writing about our anniversary, I am married to my best friend.  I could not be married to her if she weren't born...so Happy Birthday Sylvia!  

As a thank you to Ruth, my mother-in-law and Sylvia's mom, I always stop by on the morning of Sylvia's birthday to say thank you for, "Borning her in pain." (Ruth's words)  Barring accidents and oversleeping, today will be no different.  Thank you Ruth for raising such a caring and wonderful daughter.  I hope you think I am doing a good job being her husband, in your eyes.  

To Kristiana and Jacob...would it kill you to put your dishes in the dishwasher?  It's mommy's birthday for crying out loud!  Just kidding (not really)  I hope you realize how lucky you are to have her as your mommy.  She would easily give up everything for you.  She will protect you when needed and allow you to learn a lesson when warranted.  I don't think I ever told you this but when you were born, Kristiana, mommy said to me, "I love you with all my heart.  You know that.  But to look at this little child of ours, I can't describe it, the love I feel for her is like none other that I have ever felt before."  Sorry Jake, you were born a deep shade of purple and they had to shout things like "code 999 stat!" while they tried to resuscitate you, so we didn't have the whole Hallmark moment with you.  You should both know that mommy wants the best for you and works hard to make that happen.

To Sylvia, Thank you for putting up with me.  Thank you for giving me two wonderful children, an inviting home, and a heart full of love.  Thank you for not smothering me with a pillow when I didn't hear the baby crying way back when, and also now while I try to snore the hallelujah chorus nightly.  Thank you for having a heart for helping others and for being relentless when fighting to heal others.  Thank you for having a heart that loves God and for being the type of woman that, when your feet hit the floor, the devil says, "Oh crap, she's up."  Thank you for standing by me in good times and in bad, for encouraging me, for allowing me to do what I love.  I wish I could buy you your house in the mountains.  I wish I could take you to Hawaii.  I wish we could re-live our wedding and go to Jamaica again!  I wish I could shower you with everything that you deserve.  We've done the "poorer" portion of our wedding vows...what do you say we cross our fingers for the "richer" part to come our way.  I have to admit, however, that walking hand in hand around the lake or even just to the store, is my favorite place to be.  Happy Birthday Honey!  I Love You!

And finally, dear readers...for you I have a request.  Today, as you know, is my lovely bride's birthday.  I was thinking that it would be fun to get greetings from as many of you as I possibly can.  I know that I have people who have stumbled upon my blog from places near and far and I would like to get well wishes to give to Sylvia from all over the globe, in as many languages as I can.  If you would be so kind as to leave a comment for her, here on the blog, I would appreciate it.  She would too.  I mean help a guy out...this is the only present I have for her!  (kidding!)  (not really)

Thanks!

To Buy...Or Not To Buy

Sylvia and I have been lucky enough to have friends in high places.  Some of these places include...there was the one who....and that one wouldn't really be considered a high place... well, I suppose there aren't really all that many.  But we do have friends who own timeshares and are willing to share their time with us.  I don't really want to mention their names here, (unlike my cousin Kim and her friend Bernadette who have been given the mission of spreading the word about my blog) but we have two sets of friends who have generously shared their points with us.  (I'll get to the points in a minute...which coincidentally is exactly what the salesperson told us)

I don't want to seem like I am mocking our timeshare vacations.  They have typically been offered to us at times when a.) we desperately needed to get away.  And b.) we wouldn't have been able to afford getting away unless there was some sort of "deal" on a hotel.  Last weekend was just such a time.  I told our friends that Sylvia was just about "one more thing" away from becoming a serial killer and I was equally far away from being described to reporters as "a quiet neighbor."  In comes the offer.

When our friends bought their timeshare it was in such a way that they could buy extra time (points) and pay just a tiny percentage of what they would need to pay at a hotel or to buy more permanent shares.  We pay them back for the extra points and we get to stay in a pretty nice little unit with two bedrooms, a dining room, two bathrooms, a washer and drier, a balcony, and a kitchen.  It's a little condo complex in Angels Camp, CA that we invade maybe once or twice a year.  There are so many things to do on the grounds that it would be hard to point them all out here.  The one thing that makes me hesitate to stay there at all is that they try to get you to buy in to their little slice of heaven while you stay there.

I don't want you to think that they are obnoxious.  They take "no" for an answer very easily but they try to entice you to at least listen to their spiel to see if it may be something you might be interested in.  Most of the time we politely decline.  This time we decided to take another look.  I have to admit, the $100 American Express card they offered to "just listen" was the pebble that tipped the scale.  We went in, just before we were about to head home, and told our presenter that we were essentially here for the incentive and that we really couldn't afford to buy in.  He said, "I hear that all the time!" turned the brochure booklet around to face us, started tapping his finger on all of the wonderful exotic places that we could be going to, and proceeded to give us the entire talk.

About three minutes into the talk he asked if we had ever been there and had we ever seen the movie presentation that explains how their system works.  I said an emphatic, "YES!" and I turned the booklet back toward him.  Sylvia entered a much meeker, "Maybe."  I looked at her and thought, 'I thought we agreed that we would just tell them no and then leave.'  He then turned the booklet back to us and talked about how the points worked and we explained that we knew all about it since we were riding on the points coattails of our friends.  (I turned the booklet back toward him) He, luckily, decided that we had indeed seen the movie and we wouldn't need to see it again.  Then he lowered the boom.

"You know, since you have already seen the presentation I cannot offer you the premiere package.  The cost is double and the amount you have to buy is triple so we would need to come up with $50,000 to join but it's good that we came in today because the price would be going up at the end of the month."  He turned the book back toward us.  "Suppose you wanted to go to Hawaii...take a look at how few points you will need!"

I excused myself so I could unscrew my hollow leg and shake all the stacks of hundreds and twenties out so we could pay for this and said, "I think we are done.  There is no way we could afford anything even close to this and I was even thinking that we couldn't really afford to buy our friends' extra points for the weekend."   (but we couldn't afford not to since prison uniform orange really isn't Sylvia's color). I turned the booklet back toward him. He wouldn't let us up.  He started talking money.  He asked, "How many days do you stay in a hotel per year? How many days a year do you go camping?"  He then did some calculating on what looked to be the largest calculator that I had ever seen, and announced proudly, "Over the next forty years you will have wasted $46,000!  Not accounting for inflation.  Can't you see that!?"  (Booklet back toward us.)

I said quietly, "No, we won't have wasted anything.  We got away.  We have memories.  We got a return on our investment."

"Yes, but you will have nothing to show for it!"

"Well, if I am hearing you correctly, since we no longer qualify for the premiere plan then after forty years we will still have nothing to show for it since we are only able to rent these shares for the next forty years.  Unlike the premiere owners who get to will theirs to their kids."

"Umm, yes, but you are owners until then."  He then said, out of the blue, "You look like an author.  Are you an author?"

I was taken aback.  "Um yes...sort of...I write a blog."

"That's awesome.  I don't know.  You just look like you write."

That gave me an idea.  I turned the booklet back toward him and started tapping on all the pages.  I said, "I'll tell you what.  Here's the deal.  Your company gives me 50,000 points.  My family and I will travel all over the world using these points and then I will write all about our experiences in my blog.  It'll be great!  You will have more customers than you will know what to do with!  Lines outside the door!  You'll run out of American Express cards!  What do you think!?"

At this point he laughed, closed the book and put it away.  And this was the first time he wasn't absolutely sure of what to say, "We can't do...advertising team...whole division...any other questions? heh heh"

We got information for my dad and Sylvia's mom (it really does seem like a nice idea...we just really can't afford it) and went to collect our AmEx cards, gave it to our friends to help offset the cost of the weekend, and went on our merry way.

In closing, I would like to offer all of you first time readers a premiere membership in my blog. (My booklet is still being printed...just imagine that I am turning to toward you)  For the low low cost of "FREE" you can become a follower, share it on Facebook, and even write comments to me.  But hurry, corporate has informed me that there are big changes coming at the end of the month...I don't know what they are yet, but they are big.  I would hate for you to only be able to get the standard readership which involves all of the benefits of premiere but means that you have to also come and do a brake job on my truck.  Bring your own tools.

Bernadette, Kim's Friend

I warned her this would happen.  I said, "Don't laugh.  It only encourages me."  Did she listen?  No.  She went ahead and did the unthinkable...she suggested reading my blog to her friends.  There's no stopping me now!  Bernadette, I hope you are happy!

My cousin Kim, at the apparent risk of increasing my cranial pressure to dangerous and skull expanding levels, (she didn't want my head to swell) sent me the posting from her friend's Facebook page.   It was very nice.  She shared the link to my blog on her own site and then wrote a little something about it saying that she could relate to what I had written about the DMV, and that everyone should go check it out for a laugh or two.  Do you have any idea what kind of pressure that puts me under?!  Now I have to try to be "stranger funny!"  I have been getting by being "family funny" and even "friend funny" for quite some time...I'm not sure I am ready for the big leagues.  In order to be funny for people who don't know me, I will have to pull out all the stops!  With my family I just have to do the literary equivalent of, " 'member, you 'member, huh! "  With friends (and people my mom pay to be nice to me) they have all seen me do my impromptu comedy bits, so it is relatively easy for them to imagine me telling off the doctor or begging for mercy at the hands of the slowest DMV worker in recorded history.  I don't have that luxury in total strangers.  I'm going to have to really step up my game if I don't want to embarrass poor Bernadette.  Her credibility is on the line and I cannot disappoint her at this stage in the game.

I don't know too much about her.  She has been friends with my cousin for a long time, they used to go to a school that required wearing uniforms, and (this is terribly important) she has excellent taste in reading material.  She took complimenting it to the next level and told her friends about my little corner of the internet and really put the screws to me.  I couldn't help but go back and look at what I had written after the one about the DMV.  It was about snoring.  Talk about a let down.  If I were to be just tuning in to a new blog and the subject was snoring...well, you can draw your own conclusions.  Let me just say that TLC does not have a new show lined up based entirely on snoring...although it may be coming soon considering what they have been cranking out lately.  Pretty soon it'll be ice truckers who transport short bigamist moonshiners with 30 plus kids that are trying to find out which wedding dress will fit into their overly cluttered house...while snoring.  I don't know about you but I am crossing my fingers!

I suppose I could just rest on my laurels (not sure what those are exactly but I suspect they are in the posterior region and that if you rest on them too long you need to soak in epsom salts) and continue to crank out the same sort of mediocrity that has garnered me a modest amount of fame in the Slovenian wilderness!  (I'm big in Slovenia!)  But no!  I will meet this new task with honor, hard work, and silly sounding words like kumquat, fahrvergnugen, and Abu Dhabi!  (coincidentally, those words are all banned in Slovenia)

In writing this I would like to point out that no one is safe and I could write a blog about any one of you.  I never know where I am going to end up, typing wise, when I sit at the computer.  I just start with an idea and run with it...actually, I let my fingers do the running.  I would like to say that I had an idea brewing for quite some time, I developed characters, and painstakingly wrote, edited, and rewrote over a period of weeks.  No, I pretty much use the million monkeys banging on a million keyboards approach to writing and that is how I end up writing about snoring.  I swear, today, it was either write about Bernadette and Kim or too much food at holiday dinners.  Only time, and the history books, will let me know if I made the right choice!

Another thing I wanted to do today was thank Miss Bernadette for the compliment of sharing my blog and suggesting it to her friends.  It wasn't that hard to do right?...I even put a "share" button on the left side of the blog.  If you are logged into Facebook and hit the "share" button you will be able to put my link on your site for a brief moment in time.  If you wanted to do this every time I wrote something new, that would be awesome.  If you have several friends on Facebook who are publishers and are looking to pay people millions of dollars to write silly little articles about going to the DMV, buying (or not buying) a timeshare, or even getting lost in the woods on a tortured bike ride, then I encourage you to post my link on your site every fifteen minutes until I tell you to stop.  If you happen to have George Lucas on your friend list, "This is the droid blog you are looking for."  If we don't all work together as a team then this blog will never be made into a movie, Kurt Russell will never play me, Bonnie Hunt will never play Sylvia, and Drew Barrymore and Jennifer Lopez will never play Kim or Bernadette.  Only you can make this happen!  And if your Facebook friend is the one who makes us move into the movie realm...then I will let you pick who you want to play your character on the big screen!  Just sayin'!


Now if you'll excuse me...I need to go get some ear grease so I can get my abnormally swollen head through our average sized door frames.

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I was in the snow with a bunch of junior high students and there was no internet.  They were doing fine with it but I was having a bit of the writing itch and thought I would be able to take notes on my phone without anyone being bothered too much.  I was having to write this with an "app" on my cell phone and save it for when I came down the mountain.  There is a tiny light on the screen that looked like a movie-premiere searchlight in the pitch black cabin in the middle of the freezing cold woods, but the slight annoyance of having a tiny light is more than made up for when you consider that I was giving the junior high students a head start on getting to sleep.  This is important.  It seems I snore "like a rusty chainsaw that has never been oiled."  That is a direct quote from one of the previous victims of my nocturnal cacophony. 


Forgive me for jumping back and forth, and sideways, with my verb tenses...Like I said, I wrote it in the mountains after a long day of sliding around on the ice and snow.

Lucky for me, but mostly for them, they are just about as tired as can be, and I can already hear them snoring their tiny little snores.  Ha!  Amateurs!  Apparently when I really get going I can scare people into thinking there is an impending grizzly attack.  Makes you all appreciate all the nice things I've said about Sylvia even more now...right?  

I'm not an insensitive clod who relishes in causing pour souls sleepless nights.  Far from it.  I went out and bought an economy pack of industrial earplugs so they can be spared my aural assault.  Most of the boys took me up on the offer, but some brave souls said,"I'm a heavy sleeper, I'll be fine."  I told them it was ok with me but two things... I'm not even close to exaggerating and don't try to wake me up at three in the morning digging for them while screaming, "Dear God! What is that noise!?  Give me the darn earplugs!"  

I have high hopes that we will have a great night.  Well, I know I will.  I'm not so sure about the rest of the cabin... Or three cabins on either side of us.  Hopefully they will have brought ear protection as well.

A little about the camp, it's Hume Lake and it is wonderful!  Once a year for the past few years I've taken a group from our church up here to snow camp.  It's a great place that really puts on a well run program.  The pattern is that there's a speaker, wonderful worship, great food, and more activities than can be described in the little time I have here.  It's pretty cold but we have it easy compared to two years ago.  This year the weather is dipping into the thirties at night.  Oh no! I'm scared of the little low temperature.  I might have to put on gloves.  Two years ago, when the youth pastor conveniently couldn't make it, he sent me up here without him.  It was ten degrees below zero!!  We could probably have dealt with the ridiculously low temp but one of the activities involved standing on the side of a sledding hill watching crazy teenagers slide down in giant homemade cardboard creations...this is called the "Boxsled Blitz!"  I have another name for it.  I call it, "Dude, your lips are totally blue!"

As a church group, we decided that we would be the group that takes the championship.  We have a relatively small group (two vans full) compared to other churches and their two busloads!  But we have a winning combination:  A vision for things that are over the top.  An abundance of cardboard.  An overabundance of duct tape. A youth pastor who is more than a little competitive.  And ten crazy eager teenagers who are willing to suit up in snow gear and hockey helmets, drag a forty pound sled in the shape of a Pringles mustache up a hill, and then climb in and slide toward a ramp in the middle of the icy hill!  It is quite a sight to behold.  We, of course, won first place...for the second time in a row...but that isn't why we were there.  If you want to find out what the camp is all about, they have a website and you can look at them here.

Back to the poor guys in the cabin.  We had one ask me, at about 2 in the morning, to help him find his way back to the cabin.  

"Uh, Pal, we are in the cabin."  (I fumbled for my phone and used the screen light as a flashlight)

"Oh"  THUD!  (He hopped down from the top bunk and started to walk to the front door)

"Where ya going?"

"I have to go to the bathroom."

"Well it's 30 degrees outside...didn't you want to go to the heated restroom?  It's over there."

"Oh...yeah..." (he turned around and started shuffling the correct way)

My "I am a sound sleeper" co-cabin leader looked at me and mentioned that he may be a sleepwalker...and asked, "And where the heck are those earplugs!"  

(heh heh)  

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