Weeding out your weekends

Friday afternoon I drove to pick up my boys for the weekend.  As they were finishing getting their stuff together, I checked my messages on my phone and had a voicemail from my dad.  He'd called to let me know that they were in town and wanted to know where I was.  I called them back and he said they were at my sister's house, who lives about thirty minutes away from my kids.  We decided to head over there to see them.  Another sister of mine did the same thing, so it turned into a partial family reunion of sorts.

My mom and sister went and picked up pizza for everybody, and we stayed and visited until around midnight, at which point I figured I should probably start driving home.  My sister said, "Why don't you guys just stay the night.  Everyone else is.  We have enough couches."

I asked my boys what they wanted to do, and they wanted to stay, so we did.  After all, my sister and brother-in-law have an entertainment room that's basically a miniature movie theater.  (To them, there's nothing like playing Modern Warfare on a 160 inch screen with surround sound.)

The next morning Mr M was playing with his new PSVita that his mom decided to spoil  him with for his birthday last week.  My seven year old niece was fascinated by it, so at one point he let her play a game while he went and did something else.  She picked it up very quickly.

As my dad watched her play it he turned to me and said, "How on earth do these kids learn how to do all this shit?"

I said to him, "I don't know.  Probably the same way you learned how to ride a horse.  Or skin a cat.  It's just what kids do now."

You know the girl you said I'd meet someday, well I've got something to confess, she picked me up on Friday

I don't want anyone to die of shock, but a couple of weeks ago I started dating a girl. She's got superb taste in music, is really easy to talk to and fun to be around, and is very, very pretty. She doesn't even seem to be too concerned about the fact that I'm a loser who lives in his brother's basement. What's not to like?

She came over the other night, and on a piece of scrap paper that was left out on the kitchen counter wrote: [Native Minnow] Where did you come from? Who do you think you are?

My sister-in-law and one of my nieces took it upon themselves to answer her questions.

Where did you come from? He is from outer space, and/or his mom's "no-no" zone.

Who do you think you are? [Nicknames] is a narcissist - he thinks he is king of the world. He is also a verb, as in "Why are you dancing all [Minnow-ey]?"

They left the paper out so the next night when the girl came over she saw them. She laughed, then wrote: Do tell me more.

They did.

"He loves 2 watch Elmo, Barney, and Dora. He is fond of trying to kill little girls by "dancing". He also lives with his brother . . . If it weren't 4 us u'd be dating a hobo."

"[Minnow] really likes fashion, pillow talk, and long walks on the beach. He is secretly rich, but chooses to live a pauper's lifestyle. He also lives a dual life 'in and out of the closet.'"

Somehow, this hasn't scared her off. Yet.

Baby we were born to die

The other day my brother put something on Facebook about how he feels middle aged already because he never does anything fun on weekends anymore.

I left a comment saying, "Uh, news flash, you're PAST middle aged."

Later I asked him if he thought I was a dick for putting that.

Him: No, but you're wrong. I'm not middle aged yet because I'm going to live to be 85 or older.

Me: I don't want to live that long. I need to die before I turn 65.

Him: You don't want to meet your grandkids?

Me: Dude, I'll probably have grandkids in the next five years or so.

Him: Oh yeah. Well what about your great-grandkids? Don't you want to get to know them?

Me: Nah. Fuck those assholes.

I'm not looking for a warm embrace, I'm not looking for a friendly face, I've got everything I need

Uncle: How old are you again?

Me: I'm 35. Why?

Mom: He doesn't want to be set up.

Uncle: Okay, how about just introduced?

Me: Uh. I guess that'd be okay.

Uncle: I know this girl who lives near you and works in the medical field. Gorgeous girl. She's 31, so pretty close to your age.

Me: She's probably too old for me then.

Do you wanna dance? Will you wear my ring?

My youngest sister got married last weekend. I couldn't leave until Friday morning because I had to administer an exam on Thursday night, so it was a shorter trip than I would've liked, but you do what you can. It was nice to see all the family members that made it, even if I didn't get to visit with many of them as much as I would have liked. My kids and I spent a lot of time in the car (as usual - they're going to have such rotten memories of all the road trips with their dad).

Unfortunately for my sister, it rained all afternoon and evening. Luckily, her reception was indoors, and the place still looked nice.



The roses probably looked even better with the raindrops on them anyway.



My sister was such a beautiful bride. And my nieces made such cute little flower girls. The youngest one started running around and picking up the rose petals that the older one had scattered around and putting them back in her bucket. It was so cute.





Here's a picture of my sister holding the youngest flower girl later. Probably the only really good photo I took all night.



From a more selfish perspective, all her bridesmaids were either married already, or had boyfriends, so I asked her, "Would it be bad if I ditched your wedding reception and went to the one next door to see if there are any hot bridesmaids over there?" She encouraged me to go ahead, but alas, I couldn't bring myself to channel my inner wedding crasher, so I just stayed at my sister's reception.

Don't worry, I made up for it afterward when I took my children for a nice post-wedding family dinner at Hooter's.

The greatest love is always ruined by the bickering

I have my kids for a couple of weeks. It's a constant source of entertainment for me, and therefore, for you too. The other night we went to In-N-Out for dinner, and while we were there, Mr M said something you wouldn't expect a kid his age to understand (I don't remember what it was - but earlier he proved to be the only one of my kids that knew it was a meteor that caused the mass extinction of the dinosaurs).

Tortellini: [Mr M] is really smart. He's probably the smartest of all us kids.

Me: Maybe. What do you think? Who's the smartest kid?

Mr M: Dad is.

Me: I'm not a kid. Who do you think is the smartest of you three?

Mr M: Hmmm. [Tortellini].

Tortellini: I knew it! I knew he'd say me because he hates [Togers].

Mr M: I hate [Tortellini] too, but I hate [Togers] more.

The next day we all went to get haircuts. While Tortellini was in the chair, Togers said something that made Mr M laugh.

Me: Is your brother funny?

Mr M: Yeah.

Me: But I thought you hated him.

Mr M: I do! But he's still funny.

What gives this mess some grace unless it's kicks, man

Over the weekend my kids and I went on a short drive to the Colorado River.



At first we just hung out along the shore.



However, it was a hot day, so we all decided to go in and cool off. It worked. The water was freezing* cold. It was refreshing though.



Togers and I decided to go for a swim. We turned around when the current started pushing him downstream, and the water was too deep for him to touch the bottom.

After getting him back to shore, I decided to see how far out I could go. My kids said I swam about halfway across the river. I think it was closer to a third of the way. I stopped and turned around when I realized how strong the current really was.

I could hear Mr M yelling something to me from the shore, but I couldn't hear what. As I swam back, I could make out that he was calling for me to come back. When I got to the bank, he ran out and gave me a big hug.

Me: What's wrong? Did you think something was going to happen to me?

Mr M: Yeah.

Me: I wasn't going to drown. You know that, right?

Mr M: I know.

Me: So what did you think might happen?

Mr M: I thought a whole bunch of ducks were going to come peck out your eyes.



Lucky for me, they didn't. I'm sure they were contemplating it though, in their little duck minds. Fucking ducks.








*Ok, so maybe not freezing**

**But I'm a long way away from the guy who used to wet wade in fifty-five degree water on the Green River. It seems as though I've had to trade in my cold tolerance to be able to survive a summer in the Mojave desert.

Let's go for a ride

I told you a little bit about the drive, now it's time to show you a glimpse at the rest of my Memorial Day weekend.

There was plenty of rain:



That meant time indoors, talking on the phone and playing checkers:



There was a lot of quality time spent with Domo:



Quality time spent with a lizard:



And quality time with two of my nieces, one of whom thinks she's a kitty cat:



And one who refuses to crawl:



But gets around just fine doing a little butt scoot:



There was even a brief stop at my birthplace:




It was a pretty good weekend.

'Cause that cartoon has got the boom anime babes that make me think the wrong thing

Mr M: Grandpa, could you, like, go turn on the TV so I can watch cartoons downstairs?

Grandpa: I don't know if your dad wants you to watch cartoons. Better go ask him.

Mr M: Dad, do you care if I watch cartoons?

Me: Go for it.

Grandpa (who apparently didn't want to go downstairs): Shit. Bastard.

Mr M: I am definitely not one of those.

Grandma take me home

Two days ago was my grandmother's 92nd birthday. I'm a horrible grandson, and never call, but figured I'd better because you never know how many more chances you'll get. Normally I run out of things to say to her after about five minutes, but this conversation lasted almost a half hour. Here's an excerpt:

Grandma: Do you have a girlfriend?

Me: Well, there's a girl I've been dating, but I don't really know what to call her at this point. I can't really call her my girlfriend because we haven't had that conversation yet, even though we've been seeing each other off and on for about a year and a half.

Grandma: Well, it doesn't really matter what you call her as long as you like to spend time together.

Me: Yeah, we do.

Grandma: And if it ever gets to the point where you ask her, don't do it like [Grandpa] did with me.

Me: How was that?

Grandma: One day he asked me, "What would you say if I asked you to marry me?" I just said, "Wouldn't you like to know?"

Me: That's funny.

Grandma: Well, I just thought it was a stupid thing to ask a girl. He didn't deserve to get a straight answer if he was going to ask like that.

What the world needs now

I called my sister last night to talk to her about a favor she'd asked of me. After she answered my questions about that we ended up talking for quite a while. She mentioned that someone had stopped by her house and dropped off some cake, then called as they left to let her know it was sitting on her porch. When she got home, her cat had eaten a good portion of it.

Weak minded as I am, her simply mentioning the word 'cake' put a craving inside of me. I couldn't let it go, so, while I continued to talk to her I drove to the store to purchase a cake mix. Of course, then I had to purchase a few other things to go along with it (frosting, eggs, etc.). Once I had everything I needed I headed for the check out. As I did so, some Hershey's chocolate syrup caught my eye.

Me: Oh, I guess I need to get some chocolate syrup too.
Her: What do you need that for?
Me: To put on my ice cream.
Her: Ice cream? I thought you were making cake.
Me: I have some ice cream at home too, but I ran out of chocolate syrup to put on it.
Her: You're having cake and ice cream? What, do you think it's your birthday or something?

Island in the sun

I just recently got with the times and purchased a camera phone. I didn't realize how much I was missing out on before. Take this text I sent to my sisters for example:

From: Native Minnow
To: Epitome-of-Sweetness; **L**; Lightning-Strikes; TennisGirl



My view from the pool chair.

--------------------------------------------------
From: **L**
To: Native Minnow

You suck! lol

--------------------------------------------------

From: Lightning-Strikes
To: Native Minnow

I'm a little jealous, it's cold here.

--------------------------------------------------

From: Tennis Girl
To: Native Minnow

What's next? You're going to tell me it's 80 degrees there?

--------------------------------------------------

From: Native Minnow
To: Tennis Girl

Pretty close. It'll be 85 on Saturday.

--------------------------------------------------

From: Tennis Girl
To: Native Minnow

So when all the girls road trip down to your house you're not going to care, right?

--------------------------------------------------

From: Native Minnow
To: Tennis Girl

Come on down

--------------------------------------------------

From: Tennis Girl
To: Native Minnow

I really do want to. If only we weren't going to the Jazz game.

--------------------------------------------------

From: Native Minnow
To: Tennis Girl

Now it's my turn to be jealous.

--------------------------------------------------

From: Tennis Girl
To: Native Minnow

Tit for tat

I used to do a little but a little wouldn't do and so a little got more and more

Without going into all the details about the situation, someone in my family recently got in trouble for using drugs. My mom told me about a conversation she had with my grandma about it, and I relayed that to one of my friends because I thought it was funny.

Me: My Grandma asked my mom what the signs of meth use were, so my mom told her. My grandma said, "Oh, my teeth are rotting and my house is a mess and I have sores all over me....what if someone thinks I am on meth?" She was serious. My mom said, "I don't think you have to worry about it." (My grandma is a little 91 year old lady.)

Friend: Or maybe she's on meth...

Me: I doubt she'd have lived this long if that were the case

Friend: Dammit grandma, put down the pipe!!


Maybe it's time for an intervention.

In 1984 I was hospitalized for approaching perfection

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. Mine turned out to be much better than I expected. I got to talk to my kids while they opened presents, which wasn't quite the same as being there, but at least I got to hear some of the excitement. I also got to talk to most everyone else in my family, and had a good dinner at a friend's house, so I can't complain.

I am going to share part of one of the coolest presents I got. My mom put together a short family history with old family photos and the stories behind most of the major events in our lives. One thing you should know about my mother, and that is that she's a very talented woman artistically. She's also kept a journal her entire life (we're talking like 50 volumes here), and she always sets aside a few pages here and there to write down all the funny things that we said or did while we were growing up. She does this with her grandkids too. She calls them the "family funnies" and they're the only pages in her journals that she'll let other people read. I think everyone in our family loves reading those. I know I do.

Here's where the artistic part comes in. Another thing my mom does is draw cartoons. She's quite good at it, and this year she included a few pages worth of "family funnies" for each of her children that she drew up and included with the family story.

Here are a few of mine*:












Seriously, can anything beat my reasoning as a small child?



*I've cropped each one to be its own image, and in the process of doing so, took off her name and the date. Don't steal her stuff.

I am so homesick, but it ain't that bad, 'cause I'm homesick for the home I never had

For the first time in my life, I'm spending Christmas away from my family. I have to admit, it's a little depressing even though I should be grateful that I've been fortunate enough to go 32 years before experiencing it for the first time. I would say I'm homesick, but I'm not sure that term really applies. I miss people, and I miss places, but at different times and in different ways. Right now I'm missing people.

My parents have lived a somewhat nomadic life. They've moved something like 33 times since they've been married. They've moved twice since I graduated from high school. As a result, I don't really have a home town, and since I never lived in the house they're in now, it doesn't really feel like home either. After all, it's not like I ever had a room there or anything. Not to mention the fact that I don't really know anyone who lives there besides my family (well, there are a few people I went to high school with there, but I don't go visit them because we're not as cose as we once were). Don't get me wrong, I like to visit, but that's because my family's there, not because I feel like I'm going home. In fact, when people ask me if I'm going home for various holidays I usually respond with, "I'm going to my parents' house." It's a subtle distinction, but it's more correct.

For the most part, I grew up in a small town in southern Utah (after spending years 1-6 in western Montana). When I was in high school we moved to an even smaller town in northeastern Utah (the very northeastern corner to be exact). Driving through these towns almost always brings back a flood of memories on the rare occasions that I do it, but they don't feel like home because the people are missing.

Last month, when my daughter got shot in the eye, I drove to Salt Lake City, and as I pulled into town got the feeling that I was home. The funny thing about that is I've never lived in Salt Lake City. However, my kids live there now, as does my best friend from high school. I always have a place to stay. I can always spend time with someone who is near and dear to me when I'm there. I wish I could do that this week.

Luckily, I've got some friends here in town that are taking care of me this Christmas. Without them, I think I'd be getting really depressed.

There was a time when it used to mean just about everything. Just like now.

My mom has a way she swears works to predict the height your child will reach when they are adults. If you double a kid's height at a certain age (2 years old for boys, 18 months old for girls), that's supposedly how tall they will eventually be. My mom says that it worked for all her kids. They laughed about it at first because the prediction was that all the boys would be over six feet tall and neither of them are. Well, it turned out that all three of us ended up being over six feet tall (I'm the tallest at 6' 4"), so now we kind of play the game with our kids.

I have a two year old niece that is quite tall for her age, so while the whole family was visiting we started talking about how tall our kids were going to be. My daughter is deathly afraid that she's going to be as tall as me. I don't think she will be, and my mom agrees.

Mom: I don't think she needs to worry about it because girls usually quit growing about two years after they get their boobs. She's not going to get too much taller than she is right now. Maybe another inch or two before she's done, but that's about it.

Naturally, that shifted the conversation toward one of my favorite subjects: Boobs.

Sister: If my daughter gets my boobs she'll be fine. If she gets [Sister-in-law]'s boobs she's not even going to have enough muscle to stand up.

We all laughed.

Sister(to me): I'm serious! They'll be like [Ex-wife]'s when she was pregnant with [Daughter]. Each one of hers was as big as a basketball.

Me: You don't have to remind me of that. I lived it. Remember?

Dad: It wasn't until then that [Minnow] learned how to dribble with both hands.

Remember winter gets cold in ways you always forget

A few observations I made while I was out of town for Thanksgiving:

- Rock chips in a windshield occur easily and far too often.

- It's probably too cold to stick your hand out the car window when it's 11º F, but I still encouraged my kids to have a contest to see who could do it the longest (my daugter won).

- Brand name Q-Tips are far superior to the generic kind I bought for my travel kit.

- Much like me, my daughter is willing to do gross things for money. She demonstrated this by eating a fly for $5.

- It takes a patient grandma to sit and listen to a five year old boy talk about World of Warcraft for 45 minutes.

- A CT Scan is expensive, but still worth it to ensure your daughter will keep her vision.

– An eye will heal rather quickly.

- A back won’t (old injuries never really go away).

- When you're hobbled by a back injury you have to do what your Dad tells you to do because no matter his age, he can still kick your ass when you're in that condition.

- One day of diarrhea is enough to make a sphincter raw.

- I finally understand the craze that is Guitar Hero (I can play a perfect song).

- Despite her years of cooking experience, my mother is still capable of setting herself on fire in the kitchen.

- I still don’t know how fast my car is capable of going.

- We take a lot for granted.

The everliving ghost of what once was

The other night I was sitting in my car in the parking lot to a movie theater listening to music while I waited for a girl to show up. We had agreed to see Wristcutters: A Love Story (great movie by the way), but I had miscalculated the time it would take to drive across town, and arrived twenty minutes early. I didn't mind waiting. I just sat in the car listening to music to kill the time, which is something I enjoy doing anyway.

However, as I sat there listening to music, it occurred to me what day it was. Nov 11. Also known as the day my ex-wife and I officially separated. It took nearly three years for the divorce to be finalized. Those were the most emotionally draining three years of my life. It won't come as a surprise to anyone who knew me during that time that I was extremely depressed.

Flash back to that time period a few years ago, when I first moved to Vegas. I already knew a guy in the Ph. D. program because we'd worked on our master's degrees together, so I stepped into an immediate group of friends who did a lot of things together. A couple times a week we'd all meet up after school, usually at a particular bar that was close to campus which had great happy hour specials. On one occasion in particular, I was listening to Ryan Adams' Demolition on the way to meet up with them, and just broke down in tears on the way. I ended up being quite late because I just sat in the parking lot listening to music and sobbing. Once I got it all out, it took a few minutes to compose myself and go inside. I offered up some excuse about how I was sorry it took me so long to get there, but it was because I got caught up responding to an email or something like that. Of course, they knew better, but they never said anything to let me know that they knew.

I never told any of my friends (or family) thanks for getting me through that difficult period of my life. I don't think most of them can even comprehend how much they helped me. So, for the few of you who were there for me that read this, thank you. I've come a long way since then. Now I listen to music in my car to kill time, or because I want to hear the rest of a good song, not because I'm trying to get myself together before going into a public place. That's a big difference.

Eyes wide open

My Grandma: My goodness you are getting to be so pretty.
My daughter: . . .
Me: I know she is. I've been thinking about poking her eyes out so that she can't see all the boys that are going to be chasing after her and fall in love with them.
Grandma: Well, if you do that then how's she supposed to be able to run away from them?

My grandmother is a wise woman!

Once you're outside you won't want to hide anymore

My youngest sister graduated from high school on Friday. I took my kids to the ceremony so that they could see her give her valedictorian speech, hoping that it might inspire them to do well in school. My sister is someone who I would hope my kids would strive to be like. However, since kids tend to be clueless about these sorts of "life lessons" my motive was probably lost on them. I'm still glad we went.

Here's my sister giving her speech. She did a really good job. Much better than what my brother and I did for ours (more on this later).

Not to take anything away from my sister and what she's accomplished (graduation, valedictorian, 4 year college scholarship), but I think the best parts of the weekend came after her graduation ceremony. Notably, the kiddie trike olympics that were held in my parents' driveway later that evening:

Or Sunday, when I took my kids to Goblin Valley. First, we went on a short hike through a slot canyon just outside the park. The actual hike through Little Wild Horse Canyon is a nine mile loop. Since we didn't have a lot of time (or water) we only hiked about the first mile, then turned around. We hiked the entire thing about seven years ago when my oldest kids were still young, but they didn't remember much about it so I think it was good that we went again. They certainly seemed to think it was cool. As you can see, it's a great place to go to find out whether or not you're claustrophobic.

On the way back my youngest got tired of walking.

Him: Dad, can I have a piggy back ride?

Me: Yeah, but why do you have to be so lazy all the time?

Him: Because I love it.

After we got back to the car we drove to Goblin Valley and hiked among the rock formations.

It had already been a pretty long day at that point, plus we had a long drive back to my parents' house, so we didn't stay there too long. After about an hour I told the kids that we needed to start heading back to the car.

My youngest: Why? I'm happy here.

Obviously: