Busy Exhausting Weekend, Lame Blogging

I’ve been a lame blogger but I’ve been so BUSY.

Summer is that way sometimes, busy, busy, busy. So busy.

This weekend we went to the Portland Brewer’s Festival. Sadly, they were out of HG’s favorite beer.

Then we went to dinner with some friends who were lovely to see. After dinner I disturbed some homeless people because I was having a fit that HG wouldn’t let me pay the check at dinner. Note to Everyone: If someone offers to pay a check; let them. Don’t argue with them, just be thankful and move on. It will be your turn some day.

Saturday we went to our friends wedding,

She is one of my oldest friends (who didn’t even ditch me when I got divorced and became a lesbian…) He is  HG’s most best boyfriend. It was a lovely wedding and a super fun reception.  Always a good party when girls show their boobies and people throw others in the pool.  Luckily for everyone, I was not one of the people thrown in the pool as I would have D-I-E-D.  Cold water=No, No, No.

HG threw the bride in.  Luckily she (the bride) had changed out of her dress and it was only after the bride threw HG’s best boyfriend in the pool.

Sunday we took DD#2 to Sleep-Away-Camp.  She’s never been away from home before and I’ve been worried sick about her, but I know that she is having fun and I know I’ll be wondering what the hell I was worried about when next week she’s home driving me crazy again.

And I have been busily reading Harry Potter 7, trying not to have it be spoiled by some yahoo who wants to give away the ending.  I’m taking my time for a reason, because I love Harry and I want to make this last book last longer.  Yes, I could read it in a day, but I am savoring.  For those of you who have finished.  Shut it.

And finally, because I’ve been a lame blogger, I will make it up to you with a story.

~~~~~~~~~~

Once upon a time, the most fabulous hotel in the world opened for business.  VIP’s were invited from far away to visit the hotel’s Grand Opening.  The hotel’s hostess, who was well known for her gracious hospitality, went to great lengths to ensure that each of the guest’s individual needs would be met.  She provided lovely rooms, fully supplied baths, and their favorite beverages.  She tried very hard to meet their needs, while at the same time meeting her other job responsibilities and obligations.

One individual guest, Madam X, arrived at the hotel with an already negative attitude about the hotel.  It was not her desire to ever visit the hotel, and she was simply doing it out of a sense of obligation to the hotel’s owner.  She went out of her way during her entire stay to mentally find things wrong with everything that she saw, and especially looked for faults with the hostess.  She kept a schedule that kept her from interacting with the other invited guests, she purposely put herself in a position to alienate and seclude herself and basically make others not want to be around her. Still, despite her behavior, the hostess attempted to engage her, entertain her, and be thoughtful to her needs.   At the end of the Madam X’s stay, she became so upset that she yelled at the owner, blaming the hostess for a horrible visit, vowing not ever to return again.  After she left, she contacted the hotel owner and followed up with giving a large laundry list of all of the things that she was dis-pleased with,  demanding an apology.  The hostess, not knowing what she could have possibly done wrong, and certainly not knowing what she could have possibly done better, was saddened by the fact that her guest was dis-pleased, but realized that there was nothing that could be done.  More than that, she was sad that the hotel’s owner was disappointed that Madam X was not pleased, as this caused a strain between them.

At the end of the day, the hostess had to accept and learn a valuable lesson.  That despite how much effort one makes, and how hard they may try, not everyone is meant to be pleased.  More than that, you could have the most beautiful, wonderful, grand hotel in all the world, but if someone like Madam X is looking for things to be wrong; they will certainly find them.

We often get what we wish for, even if that is a negative outcome.  Tread carefully as to what kind of energy you put out into the universe; your situation is often a mirror of that energy reflecting back at you.

The End.

New Day

Today is a better day, which I spent sleeping late, sending the kids and the dogs to the doughnut shop to buy a dozen which gave me an hour of quiet, and then I took the kids and myself to the movies.  The kids saw Hairspray,  I saw Harry Potter 5, BY MYSELF!

Yeah.

I was by far, my favorite of the HP movies and fo the next two hours I plan on sitting on my back porch and reading Harry Potter, Book 7.

By myself.

I will threaten the children within an inch of their lives if they get into a fight while I’m doing so.

And then, perhaps I’ll feed them dinner, (left-overs sound divine,) and go to a short event that I am going to take a photo and cover for my newspaper gig.

Then maybe more reading.

Yes, today is a better day.

(I’m manifesting LeLo, really I am…)

LOA

I’m in need of a Leave of Absence from my life.

Oh, I know many of you are thinking, “That bitch just got back from a vacation,” which is true, but let me all do a little reminding that my vacation consisted of seven days of driving (granted, HG did most of it,) with three kids (arguing about what movie they would watch,) and camping for eleven days. Eleven days of setting up the camper, hauling water, boiling water for dishes, walking to the bathroom, being hot, being dirty, and cooking on a propane stove, (are we having stew again???)

Yes, it was worth it, and yes I would do it again BUT.

I’m feeling at the end of my rope.

HG has decided that we will now be selling the camper and buying a new one. A bigger one. Do you know what that means? Well, it requires that we thoroughly clean and clean out the carefully packed camper so that the new owners, whomever they are can purchase it. And I will fit that in, when?

Oh, yes, today because she has been waiting for me to help her with it.

And while I have been trying to help, I am interrupted every few minutes to answer the phone, look for something on the internet for someone, make someone lunch, do something for my neighbor, talk to the other neighbor, meet DD#3’s new friend’s parents so that I will allow her to go into their house, clean up the girls mess so HG doesn’t have a fit, make sure the dog gets walked, and get into a huge fight with my mother about how I don’t have any time for her, I only call her when I need something and that I blogged about my trip before calling her. (We won’t get into all of that, because frankly there isn’t enough bandwidth.)

I’m over it.

Over it.

Over it.

We won’t even START with the fact that when we returned on Thursday there was a stack of papers an inch thick from my C U Next Tuesday lawyer with her response to my Bar Complaint. A response that I spent about nine to ten hours working on because it was due to the Bar yesterday. In between working on that, I had to work two (long) shifts Saturday and Sunday and figure out a way to get the girls to my mom’s, the papers to the Bar, and me to work again on Monday before 11:00 AM. And then after work, HG picked me up to drive downtown to meet the NEW lawyer (who is wonderful and great, thanks to one of my fab readers who is now of my BFF’s, although she doesn’t know it yet…)

Nonetheless, fabulous or not, it was stressful.

And here we are today, with everything, and I’m feeling completely done.  I am sitting here writing this because I no longer trusted myself around anyone.  I was so mad I threw my tea kettle against my front door when I was bringing it from the camper to wash it.  Now, I didn’t particularly like that tea kettle, but really it did nothing to me and I decided after that episode it was probably best that I spend a few minutes reflecting and calming down, and being that I am out of Xanex.  Blogging it was.

I find it necessary to add that everytime I hear someone come in and out of the front door (it slams) I feel my blood pressure rising, and if one person dares to come into this office and say ANYthing to me, my head may just pop off.

And we’re having guests for dinner tonight.

And I have to go to Costco now.

With my three kids.

God help me.

Two Mom Family Question

Reelgal asked if anyone had anything to say about our Two Mom Family on our journey.

Interestingly enough, the only comment that was made to us was by an older lady traveling with her husband. When HG went far out on a ledge for me to take her picture, I panicked and said, “Don’t go too far, someone needs to pay the mortgage.” The lady heard me, laughed and said, “I hope he has a lot of life insurance,” I was taking a photo, so I just said in her direction, “SHE, and I hope so too.”

Then the lady offered to take that photo of all of us, the one on the previous post, and we chatted a bit about the canyon.

Later, we were on the shuttle bus with them, going to another look-out. When HG saw her at the look-out, she went over to HG and said, “You have a very beautiful family.”

It was nice.

I will say that a few times in Utah, was some of the only times that I didn’t feel Out and Proud. I mostly wanted to blend in and not call too much attention to ourselves, especially in Beaver, Utah. There are some scary people at the one and only grocery store in Beaver, Utah. Really scary.

The two nights we spent in Utah on our way home there were terrific wind storms. I wondered if the Mormon God’s conjured them up to get the lesbians out of Utah. Now worries about us moving there, however. None at all.

Grand Canyon Adventure, Part One

The guide books say that there are no easy hikes down the Grand Canyon. For Oregonians, there is also, no easy drive to the Grand Canyon. The most direct route is through eastern Oregon on interstate 84, through Idaho, Utah, and into Arizona. This drive, by Mapquest’s standards is about 21 driving hours. In real time, with children and towing a tent trailer, it’s longer than that, more like 28-30 hours; reasonable enough to do in a three-day trip, we found four was a bit more comfortable.

Starting out, the drive through eastern Oregon is beautiful and barren. It’s easy to sit and imagine Lewis and Clark and those who followed on the Oregon Trail crossing that same terrain in wagons and buggies on a journey to a new life. Entering into Idaho, the terrain flattens out and miles of farmland can be seen for as far as one can see. Making the trip down to the Grand Canyon, we drove solid from Portland to outside of Boise, Idaho for our first leg. Unfortunately the description of our first campground was one that had been exaggerated to the point of comedy. The campground sat in-between Interstate 84 and another highway, with our site exactly beside the road, filled with roaring traffic and traffic lights shining through the camper windows, which of course are mesh and not resistant to any kind of noise. The playground and swimming pool, which had been boasted as the biggest around, consisted of a small pool and a swing-set.

At the pool were a few of the campground “regulars,” those who lived there in their RV’s or campers full time. One young mother with two small boys made small talk with me and I noticed that she continuously had petite-mal seizures during our conversation. Her very young sons ran about disobeying her consistently and were obviously getting their first bit of exercise for the day. She wore a large wedding ring on a chain around her neck, a man’s ring from what I could tell, and I wondered what her story was. She told me that she had once lived on the Oregon coast, but had moved to Boise from Alaska. She mentioned that she had been to work earlier that day and I speculated what kind of work she did, and wondered whom it was that looked after those very energetic boys while she was gone. Later I noticed her going into the camper that she called home. A cooler sat outside of it, and I tried to imagine what it would be like to live this way.

For myself on this journey I several times asked how it could come that a reasonably sane person who is fortunate enough to live in a 2500 square foot, four bedroom-three bath home would subject herself, her wife, and her children to being on the road and living in a space smaller than my master bathroom (not counting the bathtub, shower, toilet or dressing area,) without running water, without a loo, and in most cases without electricity; all of this for the sake of seeing a very large crater in the earth consisting of rocks, minerals and old lava? I must admit that question still lingers in my mind a bit.

Leaving the Boise area, we felt as though we were on our way. A third of the way there and we were all very excited for the journey to continue. The children, loaded up with movies, Nintendo DS’s, books and activities were quiet as the novelty of traveling had not even begun to wear off. This of course would not be the case on days 9-11, when we frequently heard, “how much longer?” Day Two was absent of this for which we were grateful. Before leaving Portland, my wife and I took our tent trailer to Les Schwab to have the tires checked. “Check the pressure in every state” the Les Schwab guy told us. Somewhere in Idaho and before Utah we stopped for gas and HG decided to check the tires. The gas station that we filled up at did not have an air machine that worked so she insisted we go across the street to another station that had one that worked. After a few minutes she asked me if I could find out where a service station was. It turns out that one of our tires, which had been diagnosed as fit for the trip had disintegrated and all that was left was the part of the tire that actually held the air. We looked at each other and wondered what disastrous thing would have happened if we had been driving 70 miles an hour and that baby had blown. I found out that a Les Schwab was less than a mile down the road and we pulled in to thankfully have both trailer tires replaced, just to be on the safe side. One disaster avoided, and as luck would have it, I had a credit on my Les Schwab account that came in handy!

Our next stop was in Fillmore, Utah and this time the description was accurate. It really was quite lovely and had a very nice pool and high speed DSL. It restored my hope in KOA Kampgrounds (why do they spell it like that?) Early the next morning, I awoke to HG whispering to me from the outside of the camper, “Good morning beautiful, look at the sunrise.” The sun rose above the Utah mountains peeking above the field of cows that we were next took, glowing like a bright orange hello to the day. It was beautiful.

We got to the Grand Canyon National park later that day after traveling by incredible places like Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon. So much beauty there, so amazing that it is untouched by any modern life. And I mean it. Aside from the occasional Wal-Mart, I felt as though I entered a different time, (and I don’t mean Mountain time!) Driving through the Navajo reservation made my heart hurt. So much poverty, and it caused my mind to imagine again what it must be like to live without.

Our first looks at the Grand Canyon were spectacular. Breathtaking and amazing. There aren’t words to describe it and I don’t think that any of the pictures are able to accurately capture the beauty that it is. Without seeing it first-hand, a person can’t actually see it, and I am grateful that I was able to share that beauty with my family, and our experience with all of you!

We’re Back!

I survived eleven days of camping.

I am so butch.

More later, I must go SHOWER!

We’re off

Like a prom dress.

It’s Day Two.  Day One driving, was fine.

Day One camping.

A

N.I.G.H.T.M.A.R.E.

Let’s just say this.  The Playground RV Park in Meridian Idaho, boasting a large Playground for the kids and the largest swimming pool around, well they MAY have over-extended their description, Just. A. Bit.

The playground consisted of a swingset, and the pool, was a little bigger than our hot-tub and was right next to a freeway.  That’s also where our campsite was.  Right. Next. To. A. Freeway.

Sleep?

No.

My wife?

Amazing.

She let my lazy, tired self sit and read all day while she drove, but then I butched up a little when we nearly blew out a trailer tire on the highway, and I changed it found out where the Les Schwab was and paid for two new tires on my Les Schwab account.

Tonight we are at a LOVELY campground with a lovely pool in the middle-of- fucking-no-where-in-Utah.  There are cows mooing in the background and no highway in sight.

I’m in heaven.

It’s Grand Canyon Prep Time

And my wife would kick my sorry ass if she knew I was up here blogging. Actually, I’m multi-tasking as I am waiting for the Master Camping Checklist to print out so that we can cross-reference what has already been packed. Yesterday HG packed the entire trailer WITHOUT the Master Camping Checklist, and because of that, now she needs to open the whole thing up again so that we can use the Master Camping Checklist to be sure that we have everything on it, in the camper.

This morning we picked up DD#1 from Church Camp to discover that one of the campers was diagnosed with scabies. A camper that she was in the same cabin with, of course. Let’s see, last year she came down with Mono after church camp, this year, possibly scabies, what will it be next year? VD?

Good God.

I called the doctor and explained that we are all going to be in very close proximity to each other for the next ten days and perhaps it would be best to go ahead and treat her prophylactically. She wouldn’t go for it. Something about putting a toxic chemical pesticide on my child for no reason.

Whatever.

So now we’ll be on the look out for a rash in about four to six weeks.

Joy.

Ginger is busy packing for her visit to Wink’s house and it’s just hustle bustle everywhere around here.

Speaking of bustle, I think my wife is coming.

Celebrate Independence

Happy Independence Day, a day made into a holiday so that we can reflect on how our forefathers fought to break us from oppression and rule of government giving us the opportunity to govern ourselves, without the possibility of persecution.

Our rights to freedom.

Our rights to practice whatever religion we like, or none, if we like.

Our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

And this little tidbit, that I like,

“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. ”

I wonder if W has ever read that???

Wishing everyone a Happy 4th!  Be safe.

See

Dykey short.
Bad.