Sunday, December 27, 2009

Things I like and don't like


Things I like: (not all inclusive)

- The sounds to be heard in a grove of aspens.
- A good bike ride
- The way my clothes smell after a bike ride (besides the sweaty zones)
- Sugar sludge in the bottom of my bowl of cereal
- Four-wheel drive
- Substituting the word "Squirrel" for "girl" whenever possible
- My dear sweet squirrel Mandy and my little squirrel Shelby.
- Sunday naps
- The way my hair feels after a haircut
- A warm shower after working out in the cold
- Watching a summer thunderstorm roll in
- The smell of rain on dry pavement
- Tax returns

Things I don't like

- Mornings
- Running
- Donny Osmond
- Plain milk
- Country music
- Glitter
- nose hairs
- Seeing myself on camera
- Getting eaten by an alligator

This is just a list of things I do and don't like. If you have things on your own personal "like" list that I have on my "don't like" list. I don't think any less of you. Let's say for example you were to tell me that your dream day would be waking up really early, going for a run with Donny Osmond, drinking a tall glass of milk, while listening to country music, then getting showered with glitter as a film crew records your lush forested growth of nose hairs and then you getting eaten by an alligator. Then I say "Good for you!" This is merely a list of items that I have for either logical or completely irrational reasons collected.

Donny Osmond for example I can't explain. He just embarrasses me and I think he is too -- um, smiley? He makes me want to do something to him that would make him not smile. Like feed him to an alligator. Country music. I don't know? It just grates on my senses. (However, for reasons I can't explain, I like bluegrass music) Milk. Tastes like the smell of cows -- which I happen to not like the smell of.

A few weeks ago Shelby started coming into our room early in the mornings and climbing in bed with Mandy and I. Formerly, Mandy would snuggle with the child that came in to our room at night for a bit and then put them on the floor with a pillow and a blanket. A few weeks ago this stopped. I was forced to confront my morning with elbow jabs, head butts, kicks to the kidneys, slaps to the face and "Dad, I'm hungry!"

A morning is something you have to ease into. Kind of like getting onto a moving freight train. You can get onto the front of the train by standing in the middle of the tracks and waiting for the gap to close or you can ease into it. Run along side, get yourself going the same speed and grab the hands of one of the hobos cheering you along. In a sense I was getting kicked, punched and slapped onto the tracks. I haven't been very happy about it.

I quizzed Mandy about her recent change in policy. She dismissed my questions with a half baked excuse. "I don't want to accidentally step on her when I wake up in the morning!" "Hmm..." I grumbled. Later we were travelling together in the car, I was flipping through the radio channels. I stumbled across a country station. Mandy blurted out "NO! STOP! I like this song!" I grumbled loathing mutterings quietly to myself as a song twanged along and the singers voiced creaked out the lyrics. "Let them sleep in the middle" I looked over at Mandy and she was gazing sentimentally forward. She had that look like tears were bubbling very close to the surface. Somehow she had found a connection to this song. I receded back to my happy place where I was plucking Donny Osmond's nose hairs out one by one and he was not smiling. When the song was over I quickly changed the channel before another one of Mandy's favorites might have come on. and said "This is why you let Shelby sleep in our bed now? Because of a song? A CoUnTrY song?" Mandy looked suddenly ashamed. "Well, it's such a sweet song" she pleaded.

I hate it when items on my dislike list combine forces. I sigh with a tinge of gratitude that my dislike list is not so lengthy and complicated as it could be. I mean -- somebody, somewhere out there wakes up to the stark reality that they in fact, live next door to glittery and persistently sparkly personality that just won't go away that we all know as one Mr. Donny Osmond.


Sunday, December 20, 2009

Women


You hear it all of the time, and we laugh that men just don't understand women. In all honesty I am wondering, what are you girls thinking?

I recently overheard some people talking about being single and dating. Holy crap am I glad I don't have to worry about that anymore. I am truly, deeply, DEARLY, sorry for those that do.

My dating career was as short as I possibly could manage, yet still fraught with countless embarrassing and confusing moments. Dating is a lot like being dropped in a department store in just your underwear with the objective of picking out a pair of clothes that you like, and every three feet there is someone standing with a cattle prod who gets to zap you when you come into their reach. That is a bad analogy though because after you made your selection, you have to hope your selection chooses you also. I am happy to report that I came out of the ordeal having made a great choice.

Here was the confusing part. I thought I was pretty understanding, caring, funny, good looking and most of all humble. One of the blessings of marriage is that you later find out, those things you that you thought you were -- you aren't. (Well, because your spouse is silly!) In short I thought I was a good catch. I wasn't really, but I knew guys that were. I and them received some attention but the moment some guy strolled into the room with a guitar and started strumming a single chord and singing out of tune, the girl's eyes glazed over and they fawned around him like he was the pied piper. The rest of the guys and I would roll our eyes at each other and grumble "Who's the knob with a guitar?" We all knew it was game over at that point.

Another time I was standing at a street corner on campus waiting for the light to turn so that I could cross. There were some girls standing next to me and a dude with a motorcycle rolled up to the light. One of the girls stepped out of the crowd and shouted at the motorcycle rider "Hey! Can I have a ride?" He smiled and said "Sure!" and she hopped on the back and off they went. He could have been Jefferey freakin' Dalmer. She didn't care.

There are others, but those two seemed to mystify me the most. Dudes with guitars and motorcycles. They just seemed to put women in a trance.

Looking back, I am not sure why I didn't get me one of either of the two. If you are a single guy out there, I would encourage you to learn how to play the guitar while driving your motorcycle. Just learn one chord and sing about any ol' thing you want. "I'm playing my guitar! ridin' my broken down crappy Suzuki! It's really hard to steer, with my hands off the handle bars. And when all of these women are throwing themselves at me! Oh, I'm playin' my gee-tarrrrr! Drivin' my bike that says rarrrrr!..." It really won't matter.

If we look at the selection process, on it's most basic levels, I can honestly see why a female would choose a male that is tall or short. black or blonde haired. Brown or blue eyed. Has money, influence, charismatic, muscular, or even as frustrating to me at the time... can throw a football really far. They all show certain ability to produce or provide for offspring.

I think I know the answer now, but it doesn't mean I understand. I know now, but I'm not any wiser. It boils down to one thing. Emotion. Making a decision based on emotion seems so foreign to me, I have little concept of how it works. Which is why I am grateful that I have Mandy to help me out there. I am truly appreciative of the fact that she has that ability. She has a marvelous talent in making an emotional decision and then explaining it to me logically. I am also glad she can make a decision based on pity, because that is surely the reason she chose me even though I don't ride a motorcycle or strum a stupid guitar.


Friday, December 18, 2009

Casey Needs your Help


Hurray! Bonus post! well, kind of...

So, I come before you the reader with my hat in my hands and on bended knee. I need a favor to ask of you kind sir or madam. I have a friend (hard to believe, but it's true) that needs your help. He so desperately needs your help. Casey suffers from a rare condition called "gotta-git-outta-dodge-itis" symptoms include fidgetyness, twitchyness, irritability, staring longingly out the window and intestinal distress. There is no real cure for his condition, but there are treatments that afford poor Casey temporary relief. One of his treatments is a vacation. A vacation anywhere he wants to go. Casey recently entered a contest to win just such a trip. but he needs your help. Only you stand in the way of Casey getting the help he so desperately needs. All you need to do is go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7-Jv3-DZR4 or click here and watch Casey's video. It's only 59 seconds long. You certainly have one minute of the hundreds of thousands you have to watch his video. Besides, it is a good video anyway. I am positive you will like it anyway. Then you simply need to log onto your account at youtube.com (certainly you have one by now don't you?) click on "Favorite" to add him to your favorites and give his video a 5 star rating. That's it! That's all Casey needs from you. Then sit back in your chair, look up at the ceiling and smile to yourself knowing that you done a good deed today. It will make your day better, it will make Casey's day better and will make this world of ours a better place too. So, go there now. Together we can make this a better world to live in. Also, Casey has agreed to bring you back a shrunken head if you vote on his video. Thanks friends!


Monday, December 14, 2009

Indignant Offspring



Saturday I mustered enough fortitude to cart the broken down snow blower project out that has been sagging in the corner of my garage for several months now. I put new bearings on the auger blade, Checked the timing and the gap on the points. Cleaned the spark plug and cleaned the carb out a bit. piled next to the snow blower there was a pile of shrouds and guards and shields that I had no clue how they fit back on to it. After twisting them around and holding them up to the snow blower I finally figured out how all of the puzzle pieces fit back together. Several hours into the project I stepped back and admired the assembled product. Then I reached down and gave the pull chord a mighty tug. The chord snapped off and I almost fell backward after my herculean yank.

Less than an hour later I was back with a new pull chord. I installed it, shortly admired my work and gave the chord another tug. "ZWING!" said the snow blower as the recoil spring snapped inside. Less than another hour later I was back with a new spring. I installed the spring and apprehensively gave the pull chord another tug. The 4 hp Briggs and Stratton engine jumped to life. I wheeled it out the side door of the garage and attempted to test it out on the fresh snow that was falling. When I activated the auger, it made a dull "POP" noise followed by a grinding grumble. Grinding is rarely a good sound with machinery. I turned it off and wheeled it back in the garage.

All of the calamity in the garage alerted Walker and soon he was out in the garage asking what I was doing. "Fixing the snow blower" I said. He looked bored "Hmm" he said and shrugged his shoulders as he plucked a snow ball out of the gaping mouth of the stubborn snow blower. I pulled the chain shroud off of the side and found the auger drive chain had come off. Walker peeked over my shoulder "Why did it do that dad?" I grumbled "I dunno, The stupid chain is probably too loose" I reinstalled it and made sure it was really tight.

This time when I started it, and activated the auger I would like to say I fixed it. If I couldn't claim that, then I would at least like to say that the chain stayed on for a bit longer than it did the last time. It didn't.

I went through this routine 3 more times. Each time just as unsuccessful as the previous. Walker seemed more than happy to occupy himself by tossing snowballs into the chute and watching them come splatting out the front. I sat on my work chair with my wrench in one hand and scowled at the chain lying like a dead snake on the ground and the two stubborn sprockets that kept throwing the chain off. I wiggled them to see if they were loose. It all seemed good. Walker bent down to pick up another snowball and quickly peeked over the side of the snow blower and said "Oh dad, I get it" I said "What?" expecting answer like "This thing takes snow from the driveway and puts it on the lawn!" or "This thing is like a transformer and if it had a laser gun it could shoot a hole in the wall!" instead I heard him say "These sprockets aren't lined up exactly, that's why the chain keeps coming off" I didn't even think he was paying attention. Now with a quick glance he had summed up the scene and solved the riddle.

That's what is wrong with kids these days. No respect for their elders. You gotta help people, not do everything for them. Give a man a fish and he is fed for a day, teach him to fish and he is fed for a lifetime sort of stuff. I sat there trying to figure out a way to make it sound like that was my idea. Nothing came to mind so I pretended like it would never work. "Yeah? You think so do ya? Well if your so smart how do I get them to line up? Huh?" He rocked forward on his one leg and pointed at a bolt. "That loosens up the sprocket. See. Then you can slide it in or out" Then he picked up a pry bar and placed it behind the gear "This one is perfect. Then you can pry like this Then you can pull it out. Then you can take goosey (that's what he calls the air hammer, because he says it sounds like a goose honk) and push this gear in until they line up! Easy!" and just like that he was back to throwing snowballs. I mumbled to myself and stared in amazement "Pfft! That'll never work! you can't just adjust these gears around like this. I'll bet I have to take the whole thing apart and adjust the auger in a bit... somehow" While doing this, I loosened the bolt and adjusted the gear, tightened it up. Used the air hammer and drove the auger gear further on to the auger, put the shroud back on and said "Lookout! I'm starting this and I doubt it works!" I secretly hoped it didn't. I started the engine and activated the auger. The auger sprung to life and merrily churned away, clawing for snow.

KBack in my day we might have known the answers that we could see our parents struggling for, but we respected them. We were elusive with the answers and gave them subtle hints. "What does that bolt do?" "Do you think the gear can be adjusted in or out if you were to say... loosen that bolt?" and then when they did it, we would pat them on the back and say "Dad! you're so smart! You fixed it! Why don't we celebrate with some ice cream!" Dang kids! I could have fixed it without any help. Probably.


Monday, December 7, 2009

My dad, part II

If you are just joining this story then you need to go back and start from the beginning to get the proper introduction to this material. If this is you, click here.

I have adjusted everything on this devil contraption that masquerades itself as a chair to somewhat conform to my poor posture. It still bites and scratches at my back side like it was a disgruntled chihuahua. In my second attempt to finish what I have started here I shall try to endure another episode of its maniacal harassment.

My first memories of my dad are all sort of jumbled. I'm not sure chronologically which event pre-dates another. They are all sort of haphazardly filed in a certain era of my life. Brilliant flashes of time perfectly preserved in my head with no context or surrounding information. Like looking at a bunch of photo slides that are unlabeled. There are certain events that he told me about that I have no recollection of. When I was about 1 year old my family moved from Butte Montana to Farmington Utah. I don't remember anything of our Butte house. When we had lived in Farmington for a year or so, my dad ran for city council. He tells me he took me door to door with him asking for the people's votes. No memory of that. I remember playing at a friends house. I must have been 6 or 7. My friend's mom asked "Is your dad running for city council again?" I stood there absolutely confused. I had no idea he was on the city council. I stammered "Um... I... I think so?"

I remember him working long hours. Being gone early in the morning and coming home after it was dark. He also served in the bishopric and was constantly at church meetings, city meetings and work meetings. that is most likely why my earliest memories of him are so random. Time spent with him was probably intermittent.

He called me "little buddy" or sometimes "buddy" for short. Sunday nights I would sit on his lap and we would watch Nature on PBS. Don't tell the folks at KUED, or KBYU that this is one of my first memories. They will surely use my story on a pledge drive as an example to why you should contribute. Actually, if it gets more contributions, and they reach their goal sooner and that gets them to shut up and stop trying to guilt me (notice how I said "trying") into contributing. Then please do let them use my story. I remember he loved his back to be tickled and he would tell me to go get a hotwheels car and drive it on his back. 10 or 15 seconds into the exercise, which seemed like hours to me, I would say "Is that enough?" and he would wiggle his back and say "No, keep going" 10 seconds later I would urge again "Is that enough?" which he would say "No, keep going" When he finally grew weary of my requests he would say "OK". Sometimes he would give me a dime to rub his back with one of his parker pens that he always carried in his shirt pocket.

I remember riding in the Cadillac that he drove. I loved to climb in the back window and fall asleep. or lay across the hump on the floor in the back seat, feel the warmth from the engine and let the hum of the driveline whizzing thousands of RPMs, inches from my face separated by a thin piece of shaped sheet metal, lull me to sleep. Things were definitely different then. We never got hurt. If there was ever an accident, my mom would stick out her arm and prevent me from face planting into the dash. we were totally safe in those days. I don't know if my recollection serves me correct, but I remember dad pulling our trailer with the Cadillac... which was a company car. My siblings would have to confirm that memory.

I don't think it is custom anymore, but for a time, he was the ward clerk at church. The ward clerk would usually sit up on the stand at a desk on the left side of the chapel. I liked to go sit up on the stand with him and color. There was 2 wooden chairs up there and the top of the desk was completely impractical. it had a bumpy texture to it and it made my drawings look like I had Parkinson's disease. My dad was left handed and I almost wonder if they didn't ask him to be the ward clerk and sit up there so that everyone could be humored as they watched him write. Every south paw has their own technique for writing and he said he had developed his from writing with a quill pen and an ink well. For the most part his hand hovered above the paper and he hooked his hand around so that his wrist was almost directly above his pen tip. He had learned to write like that to avoid running his hand across the wet ink.

I remember camping in our Terry trailer. My uncle sold trailers and we actually drove to Washington to pick the trailer up from the factory. It's sole decoration was a Styrofoam pineapple that was ornamented with dozens of plastic beads that were threaded with pins and stuck into the Styrofoam. Then it had a plastic plume on top.

When we were camping I would awake to the smell of my dad cooking bacon and eggs outside on the metal griddle. I swear that was one of the best smells ever. They tasted just as good as they smelled. The eggs were crunchy on the perimeter, yet the yoke was still just soft enough that you could dip your toast into it. Bacon crunchy and never stringy. Steroids and preservatives must affect the flavor of bacon we have now, because it has been 15 years or more since I have had bacon and eggs as good as I remember them as a child.

I remember one time camping, my dad asked me "What do you want to do?" and I thrust my finger out and pointed to the tallest point I could see, a craggy out cropping of rocks on a peak and said "I want to hike there!" to which he smiled and said "OK, let's go." When you are small your whole perspective of dimensions is on a completely larger scale. I remember the peak looming some 20 miles or so over our heads. I had tossed out the idea sort of like you might say "I'm going to be an astronaut!" or "I'm going to start a business in my garage around these things called computers and then I will be a multi-billionaire and I will blow my nose on million dollar bills." When he said "Let's go" I gulped in surprise. It seemed to me like it took the better part of the week to get to the summit. In reality it probably took us an hour to get to the top of the small hill I was calling a summit.

When we got there we found a little spring trickling out of the base of the rocks. There were aspens and fir trees all around us. The aspen trees seemed to whisper gleefully in the sun and the leaves fluttered and sparkled in a cheerful wave. We drank from the spring and sat and admired the view. Then he said "Do you know what we do when we admire such beautiful scenes like this?" I said "Um, no?" What I was thinking was "We roll rocks down the mountain to see how far they roll? We pound our chests and make ape noises? I don't know." Then he said something that still surprises me today "We kneel down and thank our Heavenly Father" and so we both knelt down and he offered a prayer of gratitude that seemed like it was 15 minutes long, but in reality was probably 30 seconds. I remember opening my eyes during the prayer and watching a chipmunk burst out of an opening in the rocks clutching a cone and perch up on a small ledge. It looked around in the jittery over caffeinated way that chipmunks move and bite off pieces of cone and dropped them around him. At the final utterance -- "Amen" he darted back into the recesses of the rocks. After we drank one last time from the spring, we made our way back to camp. My mom was sitting in a camp chair reading a book by the fire, that had died out.

I remember lots of "Whisker kisses" where he would rub his whiskery cheek against mine. I remember lots gentleness, and feeling like my dad was proud of me and supportive and that I could do anything I wanted and he would back me up. I am the youngest of 8 children and 5 years separate me from my next oldest sibling. Looking back, I am sure I was spoiled. I remember feeling like anything I wanted to accomplish in life, I could do it. I felt safe and secure. I knew I was loved and my opportunities were countless. That I would always be backed up and supported. That summarizes how I remember feeling during the first era of my life.

My dad had a terrible temper. I don't know if I didn't notice or if I was protected that much, but I really had no clue he could get so angry. One day when I was about 6 I strolled out to the garage to see what dad was up to. He was working on the car. Things were not going so well. He completely shocked me when he turned around and threw a wrench as hard as he possibly could have at his work bench. sockets and wrenches sprayed all over the ground like shrapnel and he screamed "DAMNIT!" I slowly backed up to the door and slipped back out of the garage. When I returned back into the house I must have looked terrified. My mom immediately asked "What happened?" I said "Dad said 'DAMNIT' and threw his wrench" she pursed her lips and glanced toward the garage. Later that night when dad returned from the garage mom barked "Sterling tells me you have been using naughty words" He glanced over her shoulder at me and launched a scowl at me and somehow telepathically transported his words into my head, because I was certain I heard him say "Don't you ever come in here and tell your mother on me!" I learned not to tell on him and he learned to watch his language more around me. There was another time I was in the garage while he was working under the car. Something wasn't going his way again. Again he threw his wrench. It went skidding and clanging along the ground and smashed into the wall. He filled the silence that followed with "SON OF A..." and then realizing I was there and pausing to think about it, he blurted out the first thing that came to mind "SEAHORSE!" I learned that laughing at his tirades only fanned the flames of frustration, so in my head I gave him a hearty chuckle and a 10 on artistic execution and creative impromptu.

There is a website called www.thereifixedit.com I laugh every time I go there. because most of the "creative workmanship" seen is typical of his home repairs. He rarely took the time to do something correct. It is no wonder he had so many things to be upset about. I would be frustrated too. "I just fixed the water heater! Spent $150 for a new one, another $32 for duct tape and JB Weld to get it hooked up and now it's leaking!" "Damnit all to Hell" was his war cry that he would whoop when his tower of tapes and epoxies, and putties and wire would crumble in his hands. When I was younger I didn't think much about the idea of fixing a leaky radiator with a bottle of radiator repair. When that didn't work, watching him add another bottle and when that didn't work, adding a third bottle and when all of that plugged up and blocked up the ports for the cooling chambers in his engine. He solved that by pouring Drano in the radiator. Well, when that didn't work he had to drain his radiator, spilling it on himself and the driveway. When the Drano started to burn his skin he jumped up and muttered "Sonuvabitch!" and sprinted for the faucet so that he could wash the Drano off. Now he was soaked, burned, the rubber hoses were now ruined and needed to be replaced, the engine needed to be disassembled and all of the ports cleaned. The radiator wasn't fixed and he had spent all of that money and time on alternative methods.

I don't know why... she swallowed the fly. But now that I am older and can look back. I shake my head and wonder "Wh...wha...what was he thinking?" This wasn't an isolated case.

I remember him changing the oil and just draining the oil on the driveway without bothering to catch it in anything. He changed the oil in my sister's car. She started driving home and heard a terrible clattering under her hood. When she had it checked out, she found he had left a 3 foot pry bar under the hood. I still don't know what the pry bar was used for.

We had a leak in our roof so he would just get up there with a bucket of tar and start pouring it where he thought it was leaking.

we had a leak in our ceiling. It kept leaking after he tried to repair it. So he patched the ceiling with a panel held in place by Velcro so that he could get to the leak faster.

Another time my sister was having a party at the house and we had a leak in the wall. The girls were watching a horror movie. My dad was working on the leak on the opposite side of the wall from the living room where they were watching TV. Most people would use a utility knife, or a punch saw. Maybe try to keep quiet to not disturb the girls watching TV. No, he fired up the chain saw and cut a hole in the wall with that. Scared the Hell out of the girls watching the horror show. Then he was mad because they were screaming.

I could go on and on here. It is getting late and I need to get on with this. to spare you the details, just go to thereifixedit.com and see the genre of work he was in to.

It got to the point where he was in such a foul temper all of the time that I hated to be around him. As soon as he came home I went to my room. When he left I would emerge with a sigh of relief. Possibly the most irritating trait was to see him put on his public face. At home he was "grumble grumble" step outside and he was laughs and jokes and hand shakes and pats on the backs. Step back inside, kick the dog and "Damnit to hell". People would tell me all of the time how great my dad was. I am sure they were surprised when I simply replied with a careless "Hmm".

When I was 16 my parents divorced. People would often pull me aside with a concerned look on their face "You doing OK? You need to talk? Can I do anything for you?" To be honest, I was doing great. I didn't have to hide in my room anymore. I was enjoying the freedom of having my own car. I didn't however, like the special attention I was getting from people. I didn't like the feeling I had that I was from a broken home. I wasn't sure if there was hall I was supposed to hang out in. If there was a club of kids at school that I was supposed to join, who all went home to cold and empty homes. waited for their moms to come home exhausted from another long day at work. Listened to their mothers cry themselves to sleep every night. It seemed like the world was full of happy people that came from healthy homes and they were all normal. That part sucked, everything else seemed great.

I made it through high school. Life evened out and I figured out that every one else has just as many problems as I do. Nobody is normal. If you can show me someone normal, then I will show you someone you don't know very well.

I also learned something else very quickly about my dad. I could be angry at him. I could pick him apart so easily. I would feel so justified in loathing him. Hanging on to that bitterness would be so sweet... if I wanted. I could also jump into the bear cage at the zoo if I wanted. Only I think the bears would tear you apart just a bit slower than hanging on to the bitterness would. Be angry only as long as you need to be, then let that son of a seahorse go!

For the rest of his life I could only take enough of my dad until he started to put away the public face and then emotionally I withdrew back to my room.

This last October I had the opportunity to go elk hunting with my dad. Shawn (my next oldest brother) agreed to go along. He does not live in Utah and didn't want to have to get an out of state license. He agreed to come along and cook and clean make the hunt a overall more enjoyable experience.

From the moment I agreed to go, I felt excited about it. Something felt different and I was like a little kid waiting for Christmas to come. I had the dates wrong in my head and we actually showed up for the hunt a day early. My dad seemed more relaxed and at peace with the world than I ever remember him. He seemed more interested in talking with us rather than just telling us what he thinks.

The night we all arrived we talked late into the night like a group of old friends would. In the morning my dad and I drove around, looked at places we might like to go hunt in the morning and we drove down to a gun range off the side of the freeway just outside of the closest town. There were several other people there sighting in their guns. On a normal occasion, dad would have been hovering over my shoulder banging on my scope with a rock and calling it a "Stupid son of a gun" and for once, his slander would be more accurate than slanderous. I was totally surprised when he sat back by his truck with his binoculars and watched the target I was shooting at. He stood back and let me do what I knew how to do. When I was all done and we got in the truck, he simply said. "Well that was easy! And your groupings were excellent." verbally and non-verbally he had let me know that I was trusted. I was doing a good job and once again I felt supported and backed up by whatever I was doing.

The following morning we went out hunting. I hiked along the back side of one of the mountains and met him on the point of the mountain where it spreads out into a long valley that races up between two horizontal mountain ranges. A river trickles through the valley and hugs the edge of the range furthest from where we were hunting. The river is shrouded by thick stands of Aspens. By this time of year the aspens had changed to a brilliant palette of red and yellow. the leaves in their waning days still flutter and wave, but their stems are more stiff and when the wind blows they seem to crackle more than whisper. Instead of waving their movement changes to that of a nod.

I met dad where he was waiting for me in his truck. He was listening to General Conference and he told me he didn't want to walk far from the truck because his chest was hurting. That was the first time I had heard anything about his heart problems.

He drove out over a ridge and we sat there glassing the fields below us for any elk that might be moving for the safety of the thick pines behind us. We sat there listening to conference. I watched a rabbit bounce from behind a sage brush, nibble on some grass. Then it stood up holding perfectly still, testing the air with its nose. Satisfied that there was no threats around it bounced and disappeared behind another sage brush.

When we returned back to camp dad asked me what I wanted to do. I knew what he was thinking and it was what I was thinking too. There were so many hunters out there that any elk still in that country was now dead or in an area so gnarly, you would wish yourself dead before you got the elk out. So, we spent the rest of our time talking, eating, napping and listening to the BYU USU football game. In the morning we broke down camp and went home. That was the last I saw my dad as he normally would be.

A few weeks later I received a phone call from my sister Heidi. Dad was going in for open heart surgery in the morning. Mandy told me I had better call him that she didn't think he was going to make it out of this. I didn't call. I figured he would want his rest more than a call from me. Besides, I hate talking on the phone.

Things didn't go well. 11 hours in surgery. 8 bypasses and he arrested several times in surgery. My sister Lori was incredible through the whole ordeal. She made it up to the hospital every night with only two exceptions, to visit him and then she posted his status and any developments in a blog for all of us to read.

The first time I went to see him, I was scared, I didn't want to go. I think I went more for Lori than for myself or for dad. Although I did get light headed, it wasn't as bad as I had imagined.

On November 14th I went to see dad. I walked in the room and announced that I was there. He didn't open his eyes but his left hand bounced up and fluttered a cheerful wave. Mandy and I talked to him and he would try so hard to open his eyes and focus on us. The best he could do was nod. "Are you tired?" nod. "Are you in pain?" head shake. "Love you dad, get better" nod. Something changed in me that day. Seeing him like that. Completely submissive. I can't put it any better than Lori did. in her blog:

"I know it has been a journey to our family's heart. Our hearts have all had at least 8 bypasses on them as well. In the end, our hearts have grown, healed, loved, shared, and rejoiced. Our hearts have been knit together in love for our Father and for each other. Our Father went in for surgery, but we were the ones who were saved.
This journey has been a sweet experience for me. Heavenly Father gave me 6 beautiful weeks to hold my Dad's hand, to tell him everyday how much I love him and to learn of the inner strength of the man that I call Dad. I was able to look into his eyes when he could not speak and see a beautiful and strong spirit. I came to love him in a way that wouldn't have been possible without this journey. I was able to read him letters from his loved ones, and see the love radiate from him. He taught me more in the past 6 weeks than was ever possible in normal circumstances, all without uttering a word.
I have a new hero in my book. Dad I love you more than words can ever express. I know you are near us. I feel your sweet spirit and your strength. I know you are rejoicing with those that you have missed for so many years. I know that when I see you again, you will have lots of great stories for me. I look forward to that day Dad. Thank you for being MY Dad. I will still need you from time to time, so don't go too far."

There Lori, I hope you are satisfied. I can't say that I didn't cry now.

Now it is well into December. When I look out over a grove of aspens it is now silent. the branches are stark and cold. There is usually a stream nearby carrying the flutters and whispers away. The trees stand dormant and empty. However, it is still easy for me to imagine -- and I look forward to next spring when the rain will bring back the vibrant hues and sparkling contrast of the shimmering leaves. and I can lay down in the grass and listen to the leaves and watch them drift.


Sunday, December 6, 2009

My dad

What a strange and freakishly bewildering roller coaster ride this last month has been. Saturday morning I got a call from my sister. She didn't have to say anything. The fact that she was calling that early on a Saturday morning said it all. I didn't even need to see who was calling, I knew what they were going to say. By the time the phone had rang a second ring I had already picked up. "Hi Ster, this is Lori" she said with her voice that indicated to me that she was on the other end with a red face, furled brow, quivering chin and wiping a tear off of the corner of her eye. "We lost dad this morning." She continued. I knew this day was coming. Too many events had transpired recently that were too perfect to be chalked up to coincidence. Too many things had been said at seemingly random moments for this news to not be arriving to me on Saturday.

When I got off the phone with Lori I laid in bed for a while. I don't think clearly when I first wake up. Hell, I don't think clearly half the day. My mind is like a freight train. extremely slow and lethargic at first. Things are creaking, popping, whining, squealing and puffing. To the bystander it doesn't look like much is going on. My eyes are glazed over and there might be a dab of drool dipping off the edge of my bottom lip. But that is when there is the most exertion happening. My brain is working to get all of that mass into motion. By about noon things are picking up speed. a trotting horse can keep pace with me. By 9:00, 10:00, 11:00 P.M... Wow! We are making up for lost time! There is a steady buzz, things are clipping by like blurry wisps. I am chewing up track and barreling on to the next destination. That is why every night it takes all the concentration I have to bind it up into submission so that I can get some sleep.

Saturday morning I needed some mental clarity. Concise, agile and complicated thoughts needed to be processed. Nothing affords me those moments as well as physical labor. Mindless and solitary labor. Arduous enough to get blood pumping, but not so much that it might wear me out. I sat up, threw my legs over the side of the bed and put on my work clothes. The garage needed to be cleaned out and I had nearly a dozen little projects there that needed to be completed. By the end of the day, I had most of them completed. Do you ever experience that moment when you are driving down a road and you think "I know there is a STOP sign back there. I have no recollection of stopping... did I actually stop or did I just breeze through?" It was one of those days. I don't have very many specific memories of accomplishing many of my tasks but evidence shows I did.

Through out the day I replayed thousands of memories of my dad. Over and over again. Organizing them. Analyzing them. Wondering what effect that had on what I am today. I even put some thought into what I wanted to write here in this blog. Just as much as physical labor brings clarity to my thoughts. Writing them solidifies them, organizes them and assigns more meaning to them.

Tonight we had a family meeting. While I was there Mandy asked my brothers Kimball and Shawn if they had cried about the passing of their father. Shawn asked if I had, and I said "No" He looked a bit surprised by my answer. Come with me as we peel back the years and take a very intimate journey into my past and find out who my dad was to me. He was a very unique person and he had different meaning to each person. The other thing I have discovered from talking to my older siblings is that he was a different father to them than he was to me. I hear about their stunts and I have no doubt why.

Actually, at this current moment I am going to cut this blog short. I have a rickety old chair that I truly plucked from a garbage heap. It's exterior identifies it as an office chair. After sitting on it, you quickly realize its true purpose was as an interrogation chair. It can magically make you hurt and jab you in tender spots you never knew you had. It stabs, prods and rams you into a perfectly irritable state, such that I am absolutely convinced you would spill all of your most valuable information for a reprieve from the stabbing embrace of this wicked contraption. I have a new office chair in the garage waiting for me, but I have to wait for the formalities of Christmas and acting really surprised (however, gestures of excitement will be legitimate) when I open it up and put it to much yearned for use. Join me here tomorrow for the next edition to "My dad".


Sunday, November 29, 2009

IKEA


I don't know where to start today. I have so many lame ideas to bore you with, that I don't know which one has the most, least potential. Lets throw a dart and see where it sticks... IKEA it is!

The day after Thanksgiving Mandy and I went early morning shopping. Came home took a nap. We had never been there, so I then suggested IKEA. Gotta see what all the hullabaloo is about right? If all the other sheep are bleating about something, you gotta see the experience so you can bleat about it too. Here I go... BaAaAaAahH!

Things look fairly normal on the outside. Giant blue building that says IKEA on it. I've seen similar. They usually say Costco or Sam's Club on them. No big whoop. Entering we found a day care and free lockers for bulky items that you might not want to haul around the store. Did they think I was going to Sweden to look at this stuff? Pfffft! I'm no rookie. 45 minutes tops we were going to be out of there. I am not the dilly dally sort. I walk in. See what I want. Buy it. Go home. I know the game. The longer I am in a store, the more expensive it is to get out.

We rode the escalator up. I found maps, carts and a living room set up like I imagine you would see on a TV set. This living room was full of people. There were people stretched out on the couch, lounging in chairs and plopped in lounge chairs. They were all watching TV. Maybe they thought they lived there. I don't know. I swear there was a woman baking in the kitchen and another serving hors devours. "This is a strange introduction" I thought.

On the other side of the wall from the IKEA squatters was another living room set up. I wouldn't say I really have a style, a particular genre of design that I completely subscribe to, but I suddenly realized I liked a large portion of what I saw. The kids came running into this little room and bounced on the couches. I started slowly gazing around the room at each item. looking at the price, reading about everything. I spent a good 10 minutes in the first room. The kids busied themselves bouncing on every couch testing for comfort and deeming each one their new favorite based on merits of squishiness. Shelby came running by, tripped on a rug and fell right on her face, narrowly missing a coffee table with her head by a few hair widths, bounced up and said "I'm OK!" off to test the next couch.

We spent the next 2 hours snaking through the displays. The kids tested every chair, bed, pillow, sheet, door, surface, texture and color, labeling each one with their different levels of approval. The ones that met the highest standards were brought to our attention. "Mom! Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, DAD, dad, dad, dad, dad, mom, dad, mom, dad, mom!" Until we relented "WHAT??????" "Um, look at this. This is so awesome!"

Finally we got to the end. There was a woman there painting faces and making balloons for the kids. Walker had her paint flames on his face and make him a monkey balloon. As we all know, fire is cool and monkeys are funny. Shelby got a butterfly painted on her face and got a cat balloon. The cat had a mouse in it's paws, but Shelby insisted it was a tiny baby cat that was pink, had big cute ears and had a long skinny tail. It was her balloon, I figured she could think what she wanted. Besides, my interpretation was so barbaric.

The kids were getting hungry. We decided to go cafe that was located downstairs. There was one upstairs but had stuff like meatballs and salad that didn't meet the approval ratings of the kids. We took the elevator down and I realized something. We had only seen half of the store. The upstairs. There was still an entire level that we had not seen. We double timed it, sped past the kitchen stuff, past the group of people that were actually Swedish. One of them pointed to something and sounding just like the Swedish Chef on the Muppet Show said "Yah! a gorkensporgen!" and they all laughed. One of the men from the group stepped forward and holding his arms out in front of him in a hoop shape like he was lugging an invisible 55 gallon barrel, and repeated "Yah! Gorkensporgen!" as he laughed. We continued on to the checkout stands making the second half of the store in one hour. Start to finish 3 hours.

At the cafe we bought the kids a hot dog meal that was only $2 for 2 hot dogs, bag of chips and a drink and a cinnamon roll that was only $1. Now here was my favorite part (other than the Swedes laughing about the gorkensporgen) the meal came to $3 even. Either they didn't charge me tax or they have figured that into the cost. My brain loves even dollar amounts. That's why I spend the extra 30 seconds meticulously jabbing the gas pump trigger until I get a nice even dollar amount. That' seemed just like something IKEA would do. Make a nice clean dollar amount, because it is simple and who really wants to search through their pockets for 32 cents for a gorkensporgen?


Sunday, November 15, 2009

The Christmas Speed Bump


Of the short list of things I dislike, I hate, loathe and despise Cache Valley radio stations. They range from sadistically arduous to listen to, to horrifically annoying. Country is off that scale for me. Although, for reasons I can't explain, I love Bluegrass, which is like the redneck, Southern, inbred, kinfolk to Country.

Occasionally I will stumble across a song on the radio that I like. A glimmer of hope slowly kindles within me and then the next song comes on, I shriek in horror, yank a fist full of hair out of my head and quickly turn the station. In process of trying to find something on the radio last week, I stumbled across something I liked. It was the glassy smooth vocals of Frank Sinatra. I ignored the fact that he just happened to be singing a Christmas song. I hoped it was just a coincidence. I hoped to hear a song by Sammy Davis Jr. or I wouldn't even mind a Michael Buble, something more of that genre. The faint gleam of hope flickered to life inside of me. I smiled and listened to the song to the end, held my breath for that brief second before the next song came on, and -- JINGLE BELLS!!!! This time I ripped out two handfuls of hair from my head and quickly changed the channel. It is a good thing the kids were not in the car. I would have certainly startled them when I shouted "JINGLE BELLS? WHAT THE HELLS?" (incidentally, if you can rhyme a rant, it makes you feel nearly twice as satisfied) Don't get me wrong. I love Christmas music probably more than the next person, but come on! The corpse of this years Halloween hasn't even cooled. We just finished patting down the last shovel full of dirt on its grave and I turn around and there's Jolly old St. Nick? Shove off blubber butt, you've been eating too many chocolate chip cookies and now you are starting to crowd out the best holiday ever known to man -- Thanksgiving. You got the WHOLE month of December to yourself, you don't need to be elbowing in on my turkey day with your sweaty palms and your Ho-ho-hos.

Those pilgrims might have dressed funny and shot funny guns, but to their credit, I hear Calvin Klein was very much into wearing belts on your hat that year. They sure knew how to make a tradition. Thanksgiving has everything. First, you get to have a big dinner with all of your family. Not only is "turkey" a fun word to say, but it is delicious. Then you have mashed taters, olives that you can put on your fingers, pumpkin pie, sometimes you get ham. top that off with a nap in front of the TV playing some football game, wake up have some more pie, shove celery sticks up your brother-in-law's nose who is still sleeping on the couch, until he wakes up and screams at you and says he hates everyone and he wishes he would have never come to this family's thanksgiving dinner and he slams the door as he storms out and we all laugh, because his keys are still on the couch where he was laying. You just don't get better than a holiday centered around eating really good food with your family and naps. That's really the best life has to offer.

You will have to understand when I see Santa hip bump a pilgrim to the side as he settles up to the Thanksgiving table, that I don't hate the jolly old soul, I am just afraid that if he gets near that pie, there won't be any more for me when I wake up from my nap.

In a lineup of the holidays, Thanksgiving is much like it's puritan founders. Simple and neat. Christmas is the same holiday just pimped out and blinged up. You gotta warm up for something as grand and spectacular as Christmas. You can't start out full stride on a marathon like Christmas. You gotta practice. Get your pacing right. Get a feel for the eb and flow of things. You gotta make your brother-in-law apologize before you put his name back on the Christmas list... or before you give him his keys back.


Sunday, November 8, 2009

You don't have to be funny

"You don't have to be funny" was the only thing Mandy said to me when I told her I needed to think of something to blog about.

She is right. I don't always have to be funny. I just got back from the hospital where I went and saw my father in ICU. I just took a glance at my funny-o-meter and it is dipping way down in the red area where it has a picture of a sad clown.

Why fight it. I am just going to shoot from the hip and pour a little bit off the top of whatever is swilling around in my head.

A week and a half ago he went in for open heart surgery. A little less than a week and a half ago, he planned on waking up and saying "Son of a bitch That hurts. Someone bring me a Mountain Dew before I get cranky." A week and a half ago, the doctors lost him three times on the operating table.

I went to see him last Saturday. He looked horrible but I was optimistic. Today when I went to see him he looked better, but I am less optimistic. He has made progress every day. Baby steps of improvement. But, baby steps on an escalator that is moving in the opposite direction. For every day that he lays in ICU he atrophies a bit more. He looses more strength. The road to recovery becomes longer and more perilous. If by Thursday, he still needs to be intubated, they have no choice but to give him a trachea tube.

Tonight he looked pained and weathered. His brow was furrowed. When my sister and I walked in his room he twitched his feet and he shrugged his left shoulder so far forward, that I almost expected to see him sit up. Yesterday he was opening his eyes when visitors came to see him. Today they have sedated him beyond that point.

The thought has re-occurred to me several times that while he was on the operating table, the veil between this life and the next, most certainly became very wispy if not completely withdrawn. I am sure his parents and his sister were there to greet him. I am sure returning back to a badly damaged and pained body is difficult. A transition, I am not convinced would come without a lot of hesitation.

I no longer know what to hope for him. A recovery that means he spends the rest of his life being cared for in a nursing home or having 24 hour hospice care. I don't know if I want that for him. I know how he feels about that. My sister who is a nurse went to visit him last week and mentioned the long recovery that would possibly involve rehabilitation in a nursing home. at that utterance all of his monitors went off. He did not, and does not like that idea at all. That man loathes any indications that he was aging. He turned 79 last Saturday. He spent the day sedated, with a breathing machine doing all of his blowing in and out for him. There's a good chance he had no clue it was his birthday.

A week and and a half ago, I had no clue he was going in for surgery. He didn't call us to let us know. My sister found out and had called us. A week and a half ago I also wasn't as patient with my children as I am now. A week and a half ago I didn't listen as closely to other people as I do now. A week and a half ago I didn't stop as long to admire a cloud formation or notice how crisp the morning air is.

I don't know what is the best thing for my father. I don't know what the future has slated for him. The best I can do is hope and pray. The best I can do is see that tomorrow I am a better person for what I have seen today. The best I can do is give my funny-o-meter a few rapid succession taps on the glass, to see if we can get it back up into the green area that has the picture of a dancing clown, because he has been set on fire by a circus chimp... because, as we all know, chimps and clowns on fire are probably the funniest things known to man. Well, that and fart jokes.


Sunday, October 25, 2009

Halloween Horrors


I was recently reading a comment of a friend of mine on Facebook that said something to the effect of "is at the lingerie store...oh wait the Halloween store. Same thing." She was making commentary on something I hadn't really noticed. Well, I had noticed, I just wasn't thinking about it. To my friend's caption, I commented "Lingerie stores will have more modest clothing."

Then Walker wanted me to look online for Halloween costumes. A few seconds in and I felt like I had to cover both of our eyes. So I began to wonder where did this trend suddenly derive from. I think I have it figured out.

At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man with nothing better to do than sit on my porch and yell at kids that step on my lawn, I am going to say "Kids these days!" OK ready? Kids these days! Can't spell so good. Now I am not talking about kids in elementary school. Teenagers. I don't know if it comes from spending the whole day staring at a cell phone screen, frenziedly jabbing in LOLs, OMGs and :) Now, I hate talking on the phone more than just about anyone, but 30 seconds into a text and only having punched out 2 letters, even I just gave up and called the person I was texting. I realize that this neurotic phone jabbing, forces you to consolidate words, misspell, abbreviate and use acronyms whenever possible. Which, I fear is causing a loss in the art of spelling and face to face communication.

Back when I was a kid, we greeted each other with high fives and said "Hey dude! What's going on?" "nothin'- how bout you?" "Uh... nothing" and then we stared at our shoes. Shuffled uncomfortably and then said "Well, good seeing you. Take it easy!" "Yeah, you too man!" I fear that valuable skill is losing ground. Kids these days! Can't strangle them though, cause who's gonna spoon feed my banana pudding to me in the nursing home when I am old and decrepit? I am sure I will have to request they do so in a text though.

One day, I am positive, a gum chomping Paris Hilton wannabe was standing around smashing buttons on her phone when someone said "Hey you want to go to a Halloween party?" (oh wait, I forgot my character here) Actually she got a text that said "LOL, OMG wana go 2 a holoween pardy :)" and she smiled and texted back "4 shur LOL ;)" and then she texted "wats the theem?" and then she got a reply that said "gools and horrs" So, she thought to herself "Like omagosh! Like, I don't even know like, what a gool is... like! Like, I'm totally goin' as a whore! Like, I don't even have to even change my clothes!" and so, she went. Every guy there ogled her and every girl there was jealous of her attention and the next year... not to be out done, all the girls dressed like whores. And so, horror in a terrible swirl of word confusing events, became synonymous with whore.

Now as guys (lumped together in one smelly, hairy, Neanderthal-like stereotype) we wont' put a stop to skimpy clothing. Take for example, bikinis, mini skirts, thongs paired with low rise pants and low cut shirts. We will just pretend not to, and be trying not to stare. So, we have dressed as ghouls and let the girls dress like whores. I am sure I speak for myself only when I say -- Please stop, You don't know what you are doing, and if you do--shame one you! Besides, aren't we all forgetting the reason for the season?


Monday, October 19, 2009

I got nothin'

I recommitted myself to blogging recently. One day I stood straight up from my chair, jabbed my fore-finger into the air as high as I could reach and declared with a loud and echoey voice (because I like to sit in the shower on a chair... and just think) "I promise from this day henceforth (I paused for dramatic effect and admired the sound of my voice reverberating off of the walls) ...to blog every Sunday night!" and then I quickly mumbled something like "Unless I am taking a nap or watching a really cool show, out of town, cutting my toenails, watching the SWAT team out my front window (which doesn't happen nearly enough since moving from Logan) or training my parrot to say 'Help me! I'm Michael Jackson trapped in this parrots body!' (should I ever happen to buy a parrot).

But this Sunday came and went and I didn't have any peculiar stories to relay or interesting observations to pass on. My kids love it when I tell stories. Bless their hearts, they are too young and innocent to realize I am a pathetic story teller. Not sure if it is my voice that is so monotonous it actually cures hyperactivity and insomnia... or if it is my side tangents that make my tales look more like mazes than a linear series of thoughts from point A to B. I can do OK writing a story, but Lord help us all, if I have to tell it. So, I fumbled around in my bag of childhood stories and procured one at random. Hope you enjoy!

At the time of these events, I must have been 8 or 9. It was winter time, fridgid outside and the cold and cough season had thrown her stuffy, mucus cape over the community. It was Sunday morning and I woke up with terrible sore throat. I hate colds and I was committed to turning this one in its tracks and back out the door before it could saunter in, turn on all of the faucets, plug up the drains and plop its heavy self down in the crook of the most tender parts of my sinuses. In my finite understanding of the medicine world, I had imagined Popeye living in my immune system and Vitamin C was like spinach. And if a little bit of spinach was good... more was better.

For breakfast I had a tall glass of orange juice, scrambled eggs, 2 grapefruit and 4 vitamin C chewable pills. My throat felt better already! The whole family got ready and we went out to the car. Everyone except for Lori. I couldn't understand how she would be the first one up and still be late. Hours were devoted in front of her mirror, curling, brushing, painting, spraying and moussing. I look back now and see the hairdos she wore and understand that it was a small feat of nature to get her hair to maintain that shape. One time I was at the beach and we had some KFC for lunch. As I picked the last bits of meat off of a bone I saw a seagull coming in to land by us. I coiled my arm back and launched the bone at the bird. End over end the bone sailed right at the bird. The bird saw it too. The bird and I could see that it was on course for a mid-air collision. It flared out it's wings and tail. Even its feet and beak were stretched as wide open as they could go. Just like opening up an umbrella or a parachute, the bird exploded in size. If you could take that bird and freeze it in time, coat it in lacquer, and put it on your head, that might give you an example of what kind of hair my sister-- and the other girls were wearing at the time.

As a result, Lori was always late for church. The ritual went as follows. Mom stood in the kitchen and shouted "Come on! we are leaving!" In essence "All aboard!" We would all gather in the kitchen and mom would shout down the stairs "Lori! We are LeAvInG!!!" or "Last call!" Lori would shout back "OK! I'm coming!" we would all wander out to the car in the garage, wait the complimentary 30 seconds and then leave. Lori would then show up at church 10 minutes later.

This morning was no unusual event. Mom shouted her customary boarding calls and we left. In our church, the building was built in several stages over many years. The primary for some reason had all of the classrooms upstairs. I trudged up the stairs that at the time seemed like they were 100 or so feet long, and went and sat down in opening exercises with my class. I sat on the furthest seat in, next to the wall. Everything seemed great. We started with a prayer and began singing. Suddenly my hands felt clammy and I felt beads of sweat accumulating on my forehead. My mouth began to get really moist and I felt a clunk in my stomach as the production wheels came to a stop. I muttered to myself "Oh no! not now!" and slumped over and rested my head on the wall. The cool glossy white painted wall felt good on my burning face. I felt a gurgle in my stomach "NO!" I muttered again. But my pleadings went unheeded. I could tell my stomach was none too happy about whatever was floating around inside of it. and it was making plans really quick to purge the system. "Uh uh!" grumbled and pressed my arms into my gut. It groaned back and I could feel the pressure building. This was code red! An alarm went off in my head followed by an alert "aaoooggaa aaooggaa!" I was shocked at how quickly we had gone from all systems normal to reverse thrust.

I scooted past everyone sitting on the row as quickly and politely as I could and as I passed my teacher on the end I muttered "I don't feel so good". Unobstructed I began a full trot to the nearest bathroom. Out the primary room, around the corner, down the 100 feet of stairs that now looked like 300 feet, down to the bottom of the stairs around the corner! I just had to make it past the cultural hall and the wall with all of the coat racks on it, around ONE more corner, just a few more steps to the bathroom and then just a few more to the toilet! "COME ON! WE CAN DO THIS!" and "Who the HELL decided to put the bathrooms way over here!!!" I rounded the second to last corner at full stride. Paul Revere wasn't as hasty as I was now. But already I could feel the warm, burning flow of shame rushing up my throat. I pursed my lips and covered my mouth with my hand. My lips braced like they were playing Red Rover with the Devil himself. my fingers backing the whole operation. My legs churned like the pistons of an Indy car on the home-stretch checkered flag run. The stinging flow smashed into my mouth with the pressure of a fire hose. my tight lips and clenched fingers only gave the stream of puke more distance. As I ran past all of the coats I am sure I sprayed every last one of them with a fine stream of fluid just as toxic as sulphuric acid. Still it was hardly a concern of mine. As I rounded the last corner I dropped my shoulder and smashed through the bathroom door.

There was a man standing at the urinal. He gaped at me like I was wearing a gorilla suit and a tutu. I breezed past him, crashed through the stall door and halted directly over the toilet. A tiny dribble of spit was all that remained in my mouth. It seemed to giggle as it fell from my tongue into the water, as if to say "That's all you got into the toilet!" The man at the urinal stood there like he didn't know what to say. He stood there staring at me, as if waiting for me to do one final stunt. Finally he gathered some of his wits back about him and asked "Um... who... who is your dad?" I told him and he stood there still looking at me "I'll... um... I... I am going to go get him for you." I waved him away and groaned "Yeah"

I shuffled over to the mirror and looked at myself. There was vomit in my hair, on my face, on my hand, all over my shirt, on my tie, splattered on my scriptures, sprayed down the front of my pants and chunks were resting peacefully on my shoes. My dad came in and took me home. I slowly made my way up the stairs and into the house. I wanted to clean up, get into some clean clothes and go to sleep. I swung the door open to the house and there stood Lori just leaving. Her eyes lit up, she covered her mouth with one hand and pointed at me with the other and just started laughing. She laughed and laughed so much she stumbled around and had to brace herself against the kitchen counter to stay on her feet.

I felt like I been run through a paper mill and now I was being laughed at. I tried my best to look miserable and I felt worse now that I was found to be such a funny sight. Yet I couldn't help but smile. I groaned past her to my room. And I heard her snorting and giggling all the way out to here car. She told me when she got to church the bishop was in the hall with a rag cleaning up my puke.

Time heals and now I can look back and laugh. But to this day, you can still see stains on my old set of scriptures where they were sprayed. The moral of the story kids, There is too much of a good thing. Vitamin C overdose is very real and even Popeye can have too much spinach for his own good, but if you are looking for a quicker method to getting out of something on account of being ill than eating Beto's, I might be able to give you some pointers.


Sunday, October 11, 2009

Dear Tongue


Dear Tongue,

I am writing to inform you that your relentless reign of terror is over. Gone are the days lounging in a hammock whilst being fanned by maidservants with palm fronds and clapping your hands and ordering up whatever your hearts desire like you were a Roman Emperor. "I want you to bring me a 32... 44... no 64 Oz Coke, with a splash of artificial vanilla flavoring, and I want a Kit-Kat. But not a regular Kit-Kat, a king size for a king size appetite like we have! And I want double stack from Wendy's. And since they are $.99, bring me two of them... no THREE of them! and then I want an egg roll with some of that spicy mustard. And to finish it all off, we better eat something healthy, so that our annoying conscience doesn't annoy us. Yogurt is healthy right? Bring me a platter of yogurt of the frozen variety drizzled with chocolate and sprinkled with gummy bears. And then we will see how we feel after that"

After marching in lockstep with your relentless orders for nearly 3 years, I have found myself shellacked in a liberal coat of fat. About 30 lbs of fat. The fiddler has arrived and he has an outrageous invoice in hand demanding payment.

Thanks to you, the rest of me is going to have to spend countless hours exercising, toiling, laboring and sweating (but not to the oldies... Sorry Richard).

Consider this the mutiny. The uprising. The angry mob with pitch forks and torches demanding justice. From now on we are replacing the soda with it's puritan cousin water. No more fries. No more pre-bed snacks. No more buffets.

Tomorrow you will be reassigned to your regular duty of talking and aiding in food consumption. We don't really care what your whimsical requests are. You are an egotistical gluttonous monster. Thanks to you, we get winded getting up off of the couch.

If you choose to disobey our demands, the teeth will be ordered to lock you in. Should you try to escape the teeth will have permission to bite you with deadly force.

sincerely,

The rest of the body

P.S. We have all known the whole time that you were imitating the stomach's voice and telling the rest of us what he wanted. We didn't mind... until now. Please disavow yourself of this wretched habit also, or we will ingest a cup full of steaming hot cocoa.


Monday, October 5, 2009

Grab bag


Here's a grab bag of thoughts and stories from this week:

Last weekend I went elk hunting with my dad and my brother. I got a late start and didn't turn off onto the dirt road to the mountains until it was dark. As I was merging onto a dirt road and crossing a cattle guard, I saw something out of the corner of my headlights. It was a small animal and looked like it was fairly long. It was waddling along the side of the road like an aimless vagrant. I turned the car towards it, so that the headlights were shining directly on it, so that I could identify what this was. Turns out it was two animals. a pair of, how should I say... amorous porcupines. I'm not sure how that works. "Hmm..." I muttered to myself and continued on.

I think everyone has their own super power and their own arch-nemesis. My arch nemesis is Donny Osmond. I watched him on Dancing with the Stars. For reasons I can't explain, he embarrasses me... and... does he sort of look like a pigeon? Maybe that is it.

I was telling this story to my brother and he had never heard it. It's a good one, and unlike most of my other stories is all true and requires no extra relish or spice:
If you were driving into the culda-sac where I grew up in at the top of 200 North in Farmington, my house would be situated on the right side. On the left side, there was our neighbor's house. The property our house was set on, was about 5 feet higher than our neighbors. separating the houses was a gentle slope across the paved road. As kids do, I was engaged a competition to see who could make the longest skid mark on their bikes. I rode The most horrible yellow bike with a big, black banana seat. The steel on this bike seemed to be as thick as my arm and weighed something near what a Buick sedan might have. It was clunky, awkward, trashed and old. I hated it, but it was also my bike. A source of freedom, camaraderie and sport. I hated it, yet I loved it. The chain had an annoying habit of falling off without warning. It was slightly too large for me and if I dismounted with both feet, I came to a rest on my pinto beans instead of my feet. All of that extra weight played into my favor as it could lay the longest skid marks in town.

On this day I found within myself an extra helping of determination, energy and an evil plan to put to rest this banter and show once and for all who was the king o' the skid mark. I opened our garage door, requested the neighbors open theirs, and placing my back wheel on the back wall of our garage I pointed my battle hardened war machine towards the landing strip. I stood up and smashed the left pedal down as hard as I could, the bike lurched under my weight. I followed by mashing down with my right foot, then my left... right, left, right, faster, faster, FASTER! The pedalling grew so rapid I had to sit down on the seat and keep pumping my legs as fast as I could. The wind in my ears grew to a deafening roar. It was like the howling applause of a hundred thousand people come to watch me! I was blasting down the incline at unheard of speeds, this was sure to be my finest moment. This was it! The moment I was brought into this world for!

Disaster has a sinister sense of humor. my pedal strokes suddenly became easy. Too easy. Failure of the most tragic nature had struck me. The chain! HOLY CRAP THE CHAIN!!! Not now! NOT NOW!
Facing tragic moments of survival a brain can calculate nearly impossible outcomes, 3D renderings and damage control in only a few nano-seconds. I played them all out in my head and imediately relinquished all hope of accelerating and considered my alternatives for deceleration. It took maybe a full second for my body to realize there was no exit plan. We were on this crazy train - destination Painsville, with no stops. It was now time to minimize collateral damage. I frantically tested my route and discovered I had sweeping array of points of impact all located on the back wall of my neighbor's garage. I chose a spot on the wall that I seemed to look the softest and set my aim, braced myself and prepared for impact. From that moment on, time sped back up to normal time.

I remember picking myself up off the floor. My crotch-region painfully pounded like it was detonating with every heart beat. I had apparently taken a major collision in that area by the handle bar stem. Next, my head, body and arms slammed into the wall. I slowly picked myself up and stood my bike up. realizing yet another punchline from disaster's joke. I noted that my bike was broken nearly in half. The top tube had snapped completely free from the stem and the down tube was hanging on to the bottom bracket by a small sliver of steel. "Sweet! I can get a new bike!" I thought. I don't remember even being in pain anymore by the time I got home. I ran in and excitedly told my mom that I needed a new bike... I busted my old stupid bike!
She hauled it off to the welding shop that was a few blocks away and within a few days I had my crappy old bike back again. Never since then have I been so disappointed in the old adage "Fix it up, use it up, or do without."


Sunday, September 27, 2009

General retail outlet observations


Last week Mandy got a fix-it ticket in our car. A head light and a tail light were out, and truth be told, because it was just her and Shelby in the car, they were probably listening to Hannah Montana and swerving to the beat. Because she was at her mother's house running her day care, while her mom was on a Twilight (the movie) Pilgrimage to Washington. I had to fix it last Saturday at her mom's house so that she could have the ticked waived.

I propped open the hood and stared helplessly. No tools. K-mart was the closest thing I could think of that would have tools. Off I went in a quest for a 10mm socket and ratchet.

I pulled into the parking lot and wondered if I hadn't made the wrong turn into Chernobyl. a lone tumble weed bounded merrily end over end across the parking lot. Checking the clock I found I was there at regular business hours... but I was the only one there at regular business hours. Apprehensively I stepped into the store. The lights were on. A soft elevator song played quietly overhead. A cashier was standing at her register. Leaning over, resting her arm on the counter and her head propped up on her arm. She slowly and lethargically wandered in and out of consciousness. The motion of the door alerted her senses. She stood up quickly, grabbed the phone and dialed in one swooping motion. Standing straight up and staring right at me with large eyes, she tried to whisper into the phone but was so excited I heard everything. "Sir! A customer! Yes, right now! He just came in now! Yes, I still remember the training! I gotta go I think he is actually coming in to shop!" I rounded an end display and turned to find a clerk dusting merchandise on the shelf. He did a double take and looked at me in horror. For a few seconds he stared at me as if he was expecting me to hurt him and then suddenly snapped into awareness "Welcome to K-mart" He blinked "Can I help you find something?" I breezed on by him "nope".

The manager appeared in a brisk walk before I entered the tool section. He had his head down and he was muttering "Please, please, please buy something!" He almost ran into me. Looking up he stopped and said "Good morning sir! Please buy something!... I mean, what can I help you find this glorious morning?" I said "No, I am fine." He continued to follow behind me as I gazed over their tools. I noticed that as I would reach out to something he would begin mumbling "Yes! Yes! Yes!" If I withdrew my hand he would continue to nervously chew on his fingernails. If I picked something up, he would say "Oh, that is a very lovely choice sir!" When I put it back he would spit out a chunk of fingernail and mutter "CURSES!" Finally I selected a 10 piece socket set and started walking towards the cash register. He jumped up and down and began clapping his hands exuberantly together. He picked up a walkie talkie from his hip and said "Look alive everyone! We got a paying customer here!"

I made my way to the cash register and the cashier asked me "Will that be credit or debit?" and flashed a smile to the manager as if she was anxious to prove that she had remembered and been rehearsing what to say. When I left I looked back in time to see the manager sniffing and cradling the receipt and a crowd of 4 or 5 employees celebrating. What's the deal with K-mart. Doesn't anyone shop there anymore?

Yesterday we were shopping at Sam's club. Saturdays are sample days. I like to watch people. I like to observe my own actions. I noticed that when it comes time to take a sample a line usually forms. The person at the front of the line takes a sample, tastes it, raises their eyebrows, shakes their head in approval and says "Mmmm! This is good!" Like the person giving the sample cares. Like they aren't just there to collect a pay check and dole out tiny samples of food that we have all had. Whether you have had the the sample or not, it is the rule that you have to gingerly pick it up and look at it briefly in wonderment, like you are unsure what to do with it. Then take a tiny bite offer up praise and then you are permitted to eat the rest of the sample. Because, I am sure we are aware if the sample person hears negative comments they will immediately fold up their table, toss their food in a cart and say "Well! If you don't like my food, then I'm going somewhere will they WILL like my food!"

After we sample, the sample person tells us how much the item is and where it is located. We all nod to each other like that is an insanely good deal and slowly we wonder off in that general direction like we fully intend on loading up several cart fulls of said product. Then when we feel the sample person isn't looking anymore, we say to people shopping with us, "GO!" and we duck down an aisle towards the next sample table.

Then there are the sample bombers. The people who sneak in while the sample person is explaining to the person at the front of the line that this product has no MSG and only has minimal amounts of horse meat. The sample bomber tip toes in hunched over and says "I'm just gonna..." and they reach out with their index finger raised, snatch a sample and shrink back into the crowds thereby circumventing the homage and proper respects one must pay to take a sample. One sample table ran out of samples and while a new batch was being cooked an impromptu line formed several rows back for samples. Everyone stood reverently and attentively like they were waiting to receive sacrament from their Priest.

In an earlier trip to Sam's I was making my way down the aisle to get some soap. I was trapped behind an elderly couple. They took turns, one pushing the cart, the other walking next to the cart while looking at EVERYTHING like their lives depended on it. I tried the usual tactics, trying to nudge my cart in, clearing my throat, saying "Excuse me!" They could not be persuaded. They were fully engulfed in their shopping experience. Then they parked their cart in the aisle and they both stood next to it blocking traffic in both directions and stood there staring at the vast array of metamucil, Centrum Silver or Depends... I don't know. By this time there were two people bunched up behind me and a lady coming the other way down the aisle who were all just standing there waiting for these people to move the Hell out of the way! The lady who was coming the other way and I exchanged looks of amazement, frustration, humor and uncertainty about the situation. We were both trying to nudge our way through and they were completely oblivious. Finally the old lady stepped down the aisle allowing a path between the old man and his cart that one could slip their cart between. the lady coming the opposite direction snuck her cart through and then I slipped through. I looked back and noticed the old man had stepped back and plugged up the lane again. Old or not, boo! to oblivious shoppers.

Also, if you want a really great website about our fellow shoppers, specifically those of The Walmarts, Check out http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/


Sunday, September 20, 2009

"I smell famous people"


Saturday we were given tickets to go to the state fair. I like to go and count mullets just as much as the next guy, so I was all in. We met Mandy's family there. The fact that we all arrived there within 10 minutes of each other means that we are all either growing up or Mandy's sister Katie is finally having an influence on all of us with her quite persistent nagging. Symbolically you could think of her as the goat herder and the family as goats. Goats that are more like cats, or turtle cats, or turtle cats that are easily distracted by shiny things. Whatever animal that is, is what the family represents. Think of Katie back behind a herd of turtle cats, a constant barrage of obscenities, intermingled with a few directions flowing steadily from her lips. A 20 foot whip masterfully guided in one hand that she sends, cracking over our heads when we stop to look at a pretty shiny thing. Her other hand is scratching her pregnant belly. Usually we are all pitifully late, so this is why I pause in this tale to make note of this rather remarkable event. Actually, now that I think about it, I think Katie was late too, which might have made this event possible, but let's forget that and just marvel at the sheer wonderment of the Larsen clan collecting at a specific point all within 10 minutes of each other. That's monumental. I think the event is actually listed as one of the signs of the last days. I would do some repenting if I were all of you... or sinning. Whatever is on your agenda.

So, we all meet at the entrance to the state fair. I found a spot near the middle of the herd, Katie's whip has a harder time finding you in that area. Mandy's brother Seth was on one side of me and Mandy's sister Melanie was on the other side. We hadn't made it too far in maybe 200 feet or so, so my mullet count was only in the low hundreds when I notice Melanie off to my right stand straight up like she was in roll call for inspection by the General. Her nostrils flared slightly as she sampled the air with a few quick whiffs, and then her head began rotating on a scan like it was a radar tower. She mumbled "David?" as her head rotated to the 7 o'clock position "David...Archuleta?" she said quietly. Then she blurted out "DAVID ARCHULETA! HEY GUYS! IT'S DAVID ARCHULETA!" I glanced over and saw someone walking briskly with their head down, darting in and out of the crowds. I laughed. If Melanie is anything like her sister, my wife then this was definitely NOT David. I scoffed at her. "That's not Dave!" I can't keep track of how many times I have heard Mandy say "Hey look! It's Michael Jordan!!!" and I said something like "Mandy, that is a fat, mid-aged white guy with a Laker's jersey on" and she says "Oh..." By the time I had issued my pessimism to Melanie she had already sprinted ahead about 30 feet through the crowd and was coming up fast on who she thought was David Archuleta. My brother-in-law Seth leaned into me in disgust and offered "You know, it's jackasses like Melanie that make celebrity's lives so miserable." I watched waiting for the uncomfortable moment when Melanie would get this poor fellow's attention and realize it wasn't who she thought it was. Well, turns out she was right. It was David. David was polite enough, but he was very nervous about creating a scene, excused himself and continued his brisk walk. I am sure he just wanted to get in there, get a look at the 2 ton Jersey bull named "red" pick up a blanket from one of the booths there with a picture of a wolf howling at the moon and get out of there.

Then Katie tells Melanie "remember that time we saw David's cousin?" Now they had my attention "You saw his cousin? How did you know it was his cousin?" She said "Because he told me he was his cousin. I asked him 'Are you related to David Archuleta?' and he said he was, that he was David's cousin"

I am baffled. Can they just like, smell the fame in the air. I wonder if they have ever walked up to someone and said "You smell like you are famous. How should I know you?"

I made sure to tell Melanie that I thought she was a geek. But what I was secretly wondering was if this was some sort of sixth sense. Could the paparazzi follow behind her in LA and have her point out celebrities darting in and out of crowds and store displays. Like some sort of celebrity blood hound. Celebrities like Nick Joaquin Phoenix would be muttering "Damn! I even dressed like a homeless vagrant so no one would recognize me! But she sniffed right through my disguise!" and someone who overheard him might say "I knew you were Joaquin, but I didn't know that you weren't a homeless vagrant?!" Still, I am sure it his hard to find work for a turtle cat, that is distracted by shiny things, no matter how good their celebrity sniffer is.


Sunday, September 13, 2009

Little Pigeon


A while back I was in Los Angeles for some training. For lunch some colleagues and I were walking around LA by the Staples center. I saw some pigeons strutting around. They brazenly strolled back and forth in front of me, heads bobbing like they were listening to some reggae that I could not hear. They pretend to be smooth as the breeze they float on, but their twitchy head snaps reveal their nervous and paranoid inner fears. I have found them in every city I have been to. I suspect they enjoy the tall buildings, dank and putrid alleys and the allure of smelly grey bearded guys pushing shopping carts full of aluminum cans, quietly muttering nonsense to their selfs.

Do you ever notice within yourself a quiet desire to do something that suddenly wells up in a usually unexpected time that derives from generations of self preservation or predisposition? Some people might grow angry in a tense situation when they might not otherwise be an angry person. Maybe you see a baby with fat cheeks and feel a desire to pinch. You might be driving by a lake on a hot summer day and feel like bailing out of your car and running head long into the open embrace of the cool blue waters. Perhaps you find yourself suddenly afraid of snakes when you see one in real life. I like to say that is why I don't skydive, bungee jump or go on roller coasters. hundreds of thousands of years of selective genetics has pre-programmed me, hard wired me... if you will, to not want to just jump off of a bridge.

One such desire I have that gurgles up to the surface whenever I see a pigeon is to run up and just punt that little guy way up into the sky where he came from. I am not sure where this want comes from. Especially when I see a big round pigeon strutting broad side to me tantalizingly close. I just imagine in my head the intense gratification of connecting with my toes, hearing the deep, hollow "THOOMP!" sound and watching the bird sail up 15 - 20 feet in the air, spread its wings and flap away. I just know it would be the greatest moment of my life.

Maybe it is the glint or the intensity in my eye, or their own set of self preserving dispositions that make them stay just far enough away from me that I can't actually take that long stride and swing my foot and boot them skyward. Perhaps that is the other reason they like cities because there are too many people watching that I suspect would take issue with me kicking a bird. But so help me, if I find myself in a quiet alley, a fat pigeon strutting too close, no one watching that would call the ASPCA, Humane Society, Child Protective Services, police, gasp in horror or think it would be nothing short of exhilarating to see me in my aviary field goal practice, then I am so lifting that leg back and swinging for the moon.


Thursday, July 16, 2009

The 4th



Following tradition we headed up to Evanston Wyoming for the 4th. For those unaware, the residents of Evanston take the 4th as an open challenge. Almost as if someone told them that they thought they (the residents of Evanston) could not set the sky on fire. And the residents of Evanston responded by raising their fists into the air and replying with an exuberant "Oh yeah!" and so they try... and make a pretty good run at it.

We started the evening while it was still light by launching water rockets. It is important to warm up to events such as lighting up the midnight sky with pyrotechnic wonderment. launching water rockets stretches the neck muscles used to stare skyward at your bombs bursting in air. It also improves your trajectory tracking response. very necessary for admiring the rocketing tinders of Hell attempting propel themselves into heaven.

Ultimately the best metric for judging a home firework display is the "oooohhhh!" to "Oh SH!#!!!" ratio. and we did have a handful of them. You see, I made the mistake of buying the cheap fireworks from Jolly Roger's firework emporium and used tire shack. And My nephew Riley made the mistake of lighting fireworks that were beyond their expiration. We started with the expired firework. When you can't light a the fuse on a mortar, there is probably a reason... a good reason, probably divine intervention even. With much tribulation we finally got the fuse to light. The mortar shot about 5 feet in the air and blew up right in front of us. our first "Oh SH!#!!" Then I tested a bargain basement mortar that allegedly launched a parachute with a strobe. It launched about 30 feet in the air, took a look around, found a target and when the strobe parachute "deployed" it launched itself in a straight line for the trampoline in my brother's back yard. Shawn has cat-like reactions and almost ethereal intuition when it comes to fireworks. He moved so fast he nearly met the firework at the trampoline. He kicked it off before it could do any damage.
Later my nephew Trevor placed a "cake" a battery of mortars on a bucket and lit the fuse. We were thoroughly impressed by the show, but even more so when it fell off of the bucket. Once again Shawn was on the double and willing to risk setting himself on fire for the sake of our safety. The blur in the picture is Shawn.




And finally, I tried another cheap-o parachute mortar. this time it shot perhaps 10 feet in the air, spied another target, this time a homemade blanket, that had been completed the previous day and shot directly toward the blanket and set immediate fire to it. The Blur shown in the picture is Mandy and I rushing to extinguish the fire.




My final observation of the evening was my brother-in-law who is usually a flurry of activity, fluttering from one activity to the next. He usually has 20 irons in the fire and is tending to all of them. I watched him walk to the crest of the hill that overlooked town and stand there motionless and simply say "Wow!!!" You will notice in all of the pictures that there are fireworks exploding in the background. That is because any direction the camera was pointed, there were fireworks exploding... in a daft attempt to light the sky sans solar, Evanston style.