Category: etc.

Random jotted-down stuff:

~ Oh, Friday night — the day before we were hitting the road — the driver’s side door of the car decided to be a brat and just not open. Pushing, pulling, praying, cajoling, weeping — none of these did any good. We couldn’t get it fixed in time. Took it to Hai, the Vietnamese lady that runs the auto shop we use, and she said, “Oh. Two hunn-ed dollar just to look. Take ’bout 5 hour.” MB, already annoyed about the trip on so many levels that I won’t enumerate here, just said, “Forget it. No way. I’ll just crawl over the passenger seat.”

“But we’ll have to fix it eventually.”

“Not now.”

“Do you want me to drive?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“YES.”

Jeez, Peaches, calm down. Now he crawls over the seat, all 6-foot-3, quite proud of himself for perfecting this totally gay-looking technique, quoting from Singin’ in the Rain every time, “Dignity. Always dignity.”

~ The road from SD to Zion, Utah is basically a deadly drenching bath of steaming air. Temperatures averaged around 112. The air is so heavy, almost lumpy, like grandma’s bad turkey gravy. At one rest stop, I climbed out of the car and died. MB was sad, but he’s moving on, crawling over the car seat, dignified in grief.

~ My sister S told me on the phone that when she and her husband were discussing the car arrangements (they caravaned here with my brother’s family), Piper said, “Will I be in the car with (The Banshee)?”

S said, “Well, honey, we don’t know yet.”

Apparently, there was a pause, then Piper said, “Well …. it’s okay if I’m not.”

So helpful. Hahahahaha. That girl is no dummy, despite my family trying to pin certain labels on her. She knows what’s up with people.

More notes later …..

Because we all miss her so much and stuff. I mean, we know she’s in Zion, Utah, but where? where? where?

So to answer all these pressing questions — which is really just one question, isn’t it, and actually NObody’s asking it, so please allow me to shove this down your throats — I’m hiding out in our, uhm, bedroom suite, pretending to be asleep still.

I am here at this precise moment:

More pictures here.

Actually, more precisely, I’m in this room, in my jammies, on a cozy cushy chair, much like a chair that a certain girl I know is looking to buy. I promise to upload a craptacular cell phone photo of it later, just for her.

MB is still asleep, flopped on the right side of the bed there. Wake UP, MB!! I’m all alone! Suffering in this magnificence! ACK!

This room ….. frankly, I’m almost uncomfortable — it is SO nice. I’m all awkward with it, like those first moments of a first date. I don’t know what to say. I giggle just to fill the space. I want it to like me but there’s no way it will if I keep this up.

I’m to the left of the bed now, in the corner, curled up. Right across from me is the huge white armoire with our own personal TV. All the bedrooms have TVs. The kitchen has a TV! Lordy. I am literally just all freaked out.

Back to this room, though. Further to the right of the bed, beyond snoozy MB, lies what can only be called the Versailles of bathrooms. I get all trembly just going in there. And going in there. Stone floors. Giant glass shower with a pebbly floor that massages your feet — or stubs your toes, it’s all a matter of perspective — when you shower. A separate private chamber for taking care of business. A huge walk in closet with an ironing board, all the hangers you could possibly need or need to steal, a whole wall of shelves stuffed with smushy pillows. There are shelves everywhere in there! I’ve put one thing on each shelf so I feel all moved in. It looks really stupid. A shelf with one pair of socks and such.

I’ll leave you for now with an image of the room behind those massive windows in the first photo:

Gorgeous, no? Downside: It is 943 degrees outside and, uhm, I don’t even want to know the story behind the bubbling cesspool about a half mile up the road.

More later …. when I’m hiding out again.

Will try very very hard to post the results of the semi-finals. I think they’ll be done before we leave. Due to time constraints, I will be forced to be slightly less brilliant in my match post mortems.

So SO sorry. Do try not to be shattered.

Also, yes, thank you to the drive-by commenter who pointed out there are no crazed bee-arrs in Zion National Park. I was being — oh, whaddya call it? — silly.

San Diego is currently hosting two acclaimed exhibits:

Bodies …. The Exhibition — through September 9, 2007

and

The Dead Sea Scrolls at The San Diego Natural History Museum, through December 31, 2007

Neat, huh?? They’re just all da buzzle!

So come on over … or up … down … whatevs. I’ll bring the coffee.

So my favorite aunt was in town last weekend, all the way from Amish country, PA. But she’s not Amish. No, she flew here. And wore jeans. And partook of electricity. And no barns were raised whilst she was here. At least that we were involved in.

Anyway, turns out, she’s been busily researching our family tree and while she was telling us all about it, she dropped this bombshell: My family on my father’s side is NOT Welsh, as we’ve always thought. Nope. We are Scottish. I mean — gasp! Talk about yer tailspin! Talk about yer identity crisis! Wow. Really? Okay. So, not this:

(Although I fear I have these mom jeans and their attendant tightness issues hidden somewhere deep in my closet. Nasty Welsh.)

But this:

Okay. Hm. Actually, yesss, this seems about right. Pants-less and blue-faced and crazed.

“Midland,” huh? Guess they didn’t want to hurt us neutral, generic-sounding people by saying: Uhm, you sound BORING.

What American accent do you have? (Best version so far) Midland (“Midland” is not necessarily the same thing as “Midwest”) The default, lowest-common-denominator American accent that newscasters try to imitate. Since it’s a neutral accent, just because you have a Midland accent doesn’t mean you’re from the Midland.

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

~ I wander into the kitchen and take a bite of a half-eaten Snickers

~ I wander over to the table and take a bite of a half-eaten banana

~ I wander into the bathroom and peer into the mirror at the small red dots I get under my eyes after a big heaving cry

~ Then I think about work today and how I cannot seem to communicate with The Overlord

~ I wonder just how puffy my eyes will be tomorrow and if I can call in sick

~ I think about how my favorite aunt is in town, my dad’s little sister, and how I haven’t even seen her since the memorial service for this

~ I think about how she’s coming to Boheme tomorrow and how I wish I could show her something else

~ I worry about seeing ny mom this weekend, whom I haven’t seen since Easter and all this

~ I sit and read a chapter in this completely deranged novel I’m reading that I cannot put down and that I kinda hate myself for reading

~ I watch The Office with my sunglasses on because my backup pair of glasses were stolen from The Beanhouse and I haven’t gotten new ones yet

~ I worry about how soon I will go blind because of this

~ I glance at my calf crossed over my other leg and wonder for the gajillionth time why it looks like an albino leg o’ mutton

~ I sigh about how it’s even whiter without the sunglasses on

~ Then I think about Henry VIII because I always think of Henry VIII when I look at my calf crossed over my other leg

~ I worry about sleeping and if I will see that face flying at me again — the one that made me scream out loud

~ Then I wonder for a long long time how to get past the high cold walls to where the rest of me is, the better parts, surer parts, deeper parts

~ I wonder that in every episode