Category Archive

I’ve been scarce around these parts as of late, first because I had nothing to blog about (well, not really nothing, but my mind was fixated on the Texas FLDS compound raid and I seemed to want to blog about that but couldn’t produce anything beyond a long and rambling post that went nowhere, and the presidential race was really getting boring and even my family wasn’t saying or doing anything noteworthy, or at least not noteworthy enough to overcome my sudden blog inertia)–oh my goodness, where was I?  I was going to write a sentence, and I ended up channeling Faulkner.  You see what happens when you’re out of practice?  This is harder than I remembered.  So yeah, at first I had nothing to blog about, and then I had to go on vacation, and only now am I getting around to blogging again, and that only because I feel obligated to document said vacation before the memories fade away and all I’m left with is my souvenir refrigerator magnets. 

So Sugar Daddy and I decided last year that for our eleventh wedding anniversary, we should take a vacation together, alone.  Like a real one, lasting several days.  Originally, we thought we might go to Paris because SD fell in love with Paris when he went there for business a couple years ago, and he thought that I would enjoy it, too, despite my xenophobia, because it’s such a nice place, that Paris.  You know, it’s got the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower and it’s the city of looooove and whatnot.  Plus, he wanted me to try real foie gras.  (The stuff in the can had not impressed me.)  Anyway, this was the plan until we considered the fact that Paris is in France, and it takes, like, 47 hours to travel there, and in order to make the trip worth the time and expense, we should probably stay there for about a couple weeks.  We didn’t think the younger two children were ready for us to be gone for two whole weeks, so we decided that Paris should probably wait for another year or two.  So, Paris being out, we decided to go to the second-most romantic place we could think of:  Texas!

What do you mean, you don’t get it?  What’s not to get?  You were expecting what, Hawaii?  Acapulco?  Some other tropical locale in close proximity to the ocean, the better to have moonlig ht walks on the beach with?  We saw the ocean on our first honeymoon.  We didn’t decide to spend eternity with each other only to live in the past, people!  Get with the program.

So yeah, we spent last week in Texas.  And no, we did not visit the Yearning for Zion ranch in El Dorado.  We went to Austin–the other city SD fell in love with while traveling for business, and which he knew I would love too, because of my great love of barbecue, live music and speaking English.  Frankly, it didn’t matter to me where we went on vacation, so long as I was able to sleep in and eat all my meals without holding someone on my lap.  Oh, and that we were together. 

I get bored with chronological treatments, so I will recount our visit thematically.

The Airplane

We had to get up at 3 a.m. Monday to get to the airport in time.  Madhousewife never wakes up at 3 a.m. on purpose.  Fortunately, I’m used to getting up at 3 a.m. against my will, so this wasn’t as big a deal as I was fearing it would be.  Not like I had to fly the airplane myself or anything. 

Two thoughts:  1) Economy class is so freaking uncomfortable.  Not that I’ve ever traveled anything but economy class, but still–it’s getting ridiculous, don’t you think, the way they keep cramming more seats together?  Mark my words, in a few years we will be packed in there like veal calves, drinking our own urine and wishing that we’d given money to PETA when we were still free.  2) They served us dry roasted peanuts for a snack.  I thought it was against the law to serve peanuts anywhere but your own home these days.  I mean, I was grateful for the sustenance–better than drinking my own urine, anyway (I assume)–but I couldn’t help but notice that dry roasted peanut dust was getting strewn about the cabin, and couldn’t that kill somebody?  Do they offer peanut-free flights?  Wouldn’t they have to maintain peanut-free airplanes?  I know most peanut-allergic people aren’t allergic to the air that peanut dust abides in, but what if your kid just starts randomly licking the seat in front of him?  Is flying still safer than driving?  I’m just asking.

Books read:  1)  Wicked by Greory Maguire.  Pretty good, I guess, but near the end I kept thinking, “I must not dwell too long on the larger themes this story suggests.  Either the whole thing will collapse like a house of cards, or I will get a severe headache.  Perhaps I should have just watched the musical.”  2)  Confessions of a Teen Sleuth by Chelsea Cain.  Chelsea Cain is a columnist for the Oregonian, and she is one of the funniest writers I have ever read.  At first I didn’t know whether I loved her or was insanely jealous of her because she basically has my dream job:  get paid for writing about the irrelevant.  Could this have eventually been my career if I’d stayed in journalism instead of pursuing my lifelong dream of bearing children and scraping dried fecal matter out of little boy underpants?  No, I am not jealous, I decide.  I love her.  Confessions is a work of fiction, a parody of the Nancy Drew series.  Not quite as good as it could have been, but still pretty darn funny.  Five bucks at the Urban Outfitters.  Not that I shop at Urban Outfitters, but the book and I just happened to run into each other there; it was like it was meant to be.

The Food

I can take or leave Tex Mex.  You know, I like Mexican food a lot, and you can’t get very good Mexican food in Oregon, except at the roach coaches in the Big Lots parking lot, or so SD tells me.  He took me to a taqueria in (freaking) Tigard once, which I understand was pretty close to roach coach goodness, but I haven’t actually tasted of the true roach coach myself because when I go out to eat, I like to sit down and have people wait on me.  Eating while standing is too much like being at home.  But I digress.  Where was I?  Oh.  So the Mexican food I’m used to is California Mexican food, and Tex Mex is different, because it’s got the gravy going on–and that’s fine, because I like the gravy.  It’s just not what I live and die for.  So I enjoyed me some Tex Mex because I was, after all, in Texas, but what I really want to tell you about is the barbecue because holy cow and other farm animals, that was some tasty crap. 

Our first meal in Texas was at the Salt Lick, which is about 30 miles (I think?) outside of Austin, in the middle of freaking nowhere.  Seriously, there are farm houses and stretches of land containing nothing, and then you have the Salt Lick, which doesn’t sound particularly appetizing, but trust me.  It was de-freaking-licious.  Maybe because I had nothing but dry roasted peanut dust in my stomach prior to dining there, but I suspect some culinary talent had a hand in things as well.  Our last meal in Texas was at the Iron Works, which is a freaking metal shack in downtown Austin.  We ordered two sampler plates and a whole rack of pork ribs.  That may have been overkill.  But we were in Texas, you see, so it wasn’t, technically.  We felt a little bit guilty afterwards, and I kept telling SD to stop talking about how much food we ate and how wrong it was–couldn’t what happened in Texas just stay in Texas?–but he wouldn’t listen to me. 

My husband is better suited to restaurant reviewing than I am–I went straight from covering the pet and senior citizen beat to the whole poop-scraping gig, and my foodie vocabulary is sorely lacking as a result, so I apologize for not evoking mouth-watering images and pontificating about smokiness and sweet-tangy something-or-other.  Maybe I’ll talk SD into writing an ode to Texas barbecue joints.  Myself, I will just tell you that if you go to Driftwood and don’t get the Salt Lick’s cobbler and the pecan pie, you are committing a major sin of food-omission.  I don’t care if you don’t like pecans.  Unless you are allergic to tree nuts, you will order the pie and you will like it.  After you have eaten the cobbler (peach and/or blackberry), warmed and a la mode.  Don’t argue.  I’m through with you.

Because we are snobs and wanted to sample the upscale Austin-dining experience, we also paid a visit to Jeffrey’s, which comes highly recommended by George W. Bush, also known as the current President of the United States, for those of you who haven’t been paying attention to current events.  I didn’t order the fried clams, which are supposed to be W’s favorite–I’m sure they’re delicious, but I was more in the mood for the leek-and-brie tart.  (SD had the smoked foie gras because he always gets foie gras whenever it’s on the menu.  I had some, too.  It was good.)  Yeah, I had some tart and a baby romaine salad–at least I think it was romaine, it was baby anyway–and a beef tenderloin with cauliflower manchego gratin and mustard-peppercorn sauce, and then we split a Chocolate Intemperance cake for dessert.  Plus ice cream. 

I also ate some fried pickles at Katz’s.

Also noteworthy:  I drank more diet Coke on this trip than perhaps I have ever drunk in my history of diet Coke-drinking.  I’m not crazy about carbonated beverages, but lately I really get a hankering for the diet Coke, preferably with lime, but not necessarily.  This is the way Mormon housewives let loose.  We binge on diet Coke and barbecue.  When the kids aren’t around, I am a regular hedonist.

The Music

On Monday we were fortunate enough to have tickets to see Guy Clark, Joe Ely, John Hiatt, and Lyle Lovett at the Paramount Theatre.  I had seen Lyle Lovett in concert many times, but not in about six years.  I don’t get out to see concerts much, since I got married.  We saw Lyle Lovett six years ago and Nightwish back in November, and that about covers it, I think.  Anyway, when we found out Lyle was going to be playing in Austin, of course we had to go because he is my favorite.  He wasn’t with his Large Band, but it was just him and the other aforementioned gentlemen and their respective guitars.  They had no set play list, and they each just took turns playing songs and telling stories, and it was just a very intimate and casual show.  They were all four very humorous and charming and enjoyable, and musically speaking, it was freaking awesome.  (My formal training is somewhat limited, but I believe “freaking awesome” is the technical term.)  Seriously, just four extremely talented men with their guitars.  John Hiatt was in especially rare form.  That cat was amazing.  But they were all wonderful. 

As I said to SD, while it was a much different experience than a heavy metal concert, the thing I enjoyed the most was the same thing I enjoyed most about seeing Nightwish–just watching these people who love music and enjoy playing together, there’s something quite touching about it.  

On Wednesday night (Tuesday night being our night to hang out with SD’s cousin’s family–proof positive that some things are just in the DNA, but that’s another blog) after dinner at Jeffrey’s, we went looking for some more live music, Austin being the Live Music Capital of the World and all (take that, Paris!), and eventually ended up at Nuno’s, watching a very talented blues musician whose name we never did get.  His band was interesting, as his bass player appeared to be twelve, and they were joined by a trumpet player who appeared to be out of his mind.  Oh, we were hep cats, sitting in the blues club and sipping our diet Cokes.  I noticed that one of the ladies dancing up front had apparently had a C-section at some point in her life.  For some reason that detail stuck in my memory and the name of the band escaped me.  What can I say? 

My life being what it is, I haven’t spent a lot of time in bars, be they blues clubs or otherwise, but whenever I’m in a bar, I always think how depressing it must be for people trying to meet other people in bars.  Do you ever see a happy couple and ask them how they met and they say, “Oh, we met in a bar”?  I’m sure such people exist, but if I were reduced to meeting potential romantic partners in bars, I think I would spend a significant percentage of my nights crying myself to sleep.  Maybe it would be different if I drank something stronger than diet Coke.  That’s neither here nor there.

The Sight-Seeing 

We saw the capital.  It’s big.  Nice-looking, too–made of Texas red granite.  Very pretty. 

We visited the Museum of the Weird, located in the Lucky Lizard shop on Sixth Street.  Free admission with purchase of a t-shirt, but we didn’t care for their t-shirts, so we paid the $3 per person to get in.  Freak of nature stuff–Fiji mermaid, shrunken heads, two-headed cows and two-bodied pigs–totally messed up.  I would have bought a post card, but it was just too gross. 

We went to three art galleries.  The first had an exhibit of art by local high school students.  That was better than one might expect.  I was impressed.  Then we saw some contemporary art by emerging Austin artists at the Austin Museum of Art.  Our favorite was the video by Jill Pangallo about her adventures with her custom-made twin doll.  That was surreal and wrong.  Just the way we like it.  And we went to the Mexic Arte Museum, where we saw contemporary art by Mexican-American artists and an exhibit of retablos.  Bonus.

We visited a myriad of shops that sold handmade kitsch and Dia de los Muertos stuff.  Also an antique shop, where we purchased an authentic stop sign for Elvis, despite the fact that it is somewhat heavy and could be used as a weapon.  We were in Texas, and everything seemed justifiable at the time.  We also spent about thirty seconds in a souvenir shop that smelled like my other son’s butt.  Not to be crass, but it was as if someone made soap out of my son’s butt and this store sold nothing but Eau de My Son’s Butt.  It permeated the entire facility.  It defied alternative explanations.

I am very careful about buying souvenirs, I think.  Or at least, if I’m careless, I feel guilty about it.  I already have so many possessions, and I don’t relish the thought of adding to my collection of useless crap.  But I am a sucker for the refrigerator magnets.  Why do I love refrigerator magnets?  Probably because they’re so easy to hang.  On this trip I bought three souvenir magnets–one with the Austin Museum of Art logo (to represent my art-viewing experience), one with a guitar (to represent the music-listening experience), and one that says, “You all may go to hell, and I will go to Texas” (because I’m just that way).

What Remained Unseen

So Austin is also famous for its Bats at Dusk.  Our hotel was right by the famous bat cave where all these bats live and at dusk they’re supposed to fly out and cover the sky with their bat-ness, but they never did show up.  I was somewhat disappointed.  I had really wanted to see some bats.  More particularly because I was not deprived of the experience of smelling the bats, and I just think that if you’re going to smell the bats, you should be able to see them, too.  Oh, well.  Maybe next time.

We didn’t take many pictures on this vacation, mostly because we kept forgetting to bring the camera with us, and also because we’re just really bad about taking pictures.  I’m especially bad at taking pictures of places, as opposed to people.  I just don’t know how to do it right.  Which is how I managed to visit New York ten years ago and not bring home a single photograph, no, not one.  But that’s another story.  Desparate for a material souvenir whereby to remember the concert at the Paramount–given that no merchandise was sold there and not even our tickets had all the performers’ names on them–we took some pictures of the marquee before they changed it.  Perhaps I will make a refrigerator magnet out of it someday.

 

Those of you who have been paying attention know that I have been absent from the blogosphere for the last two weeks, and those of you who have been paying even closer attention know that my absence was due to me being on “vacation.”  Sugar Daddy and I loaded our cherry-red minivan with four children and provisions and drove to California, where we spent a few days on the coast, followed by a few days with relatives and friends.  I actually despise travelogues–though I enjoy mine more than I do yours (ha ha!)–but I feel obligated to document the trip or it’s like it never happened.  Sure, we took pictures, but it’s not like we’re ever going to develop them or anything, much less put them in an album, so I’m going to have to type some things and put them on the internet, where they will live to haunt me at some later date.

Last year I went with a chronological account, but I think this year I’m going to organize by themes instead.

Car Travel

I can’t tell you how many times I unbuckled my seat belt and crawled into one or more of the back seats for some child-related reason whilst SD was barreling down the highway at 75 mph.  In my defense, it was most often to rebuckle Elvis’s belt or prevent him from unbuckling it in the first place.  We finally got wise and reinstated his five-point harness, which in Elvis’s capable hands is really only a 3/5-point harness, but like I always say, three points is better than zero.  At least when it comes to child restraints.  In golf it is obviously different.  No matter.  I am happy to say that I only risked my life once for the express purpose of climbing back to rearrange Princess Zurg’s face.  I am also happy to say that I actually ended up not rearranging her face.  That is another thing I might have regretted, outside of death itself. 

Many movies were watched on the car DVD player.  But apparently not enough to satisfy me.

Having a vivid recollection of last year’s incident when Mister Bubby threw up all over himself and his car seat (note to any kids who might be reading this:  don’t do that) whilst we were driving through the Grapevine, I made a special point of packing paper towels, antiseptic wipes and a large bottle of Febreeze, if only as anti-vomit insurance.  Happily, the only person who got sick during the Grapevine leg this time was me, and I did not throw up. 

Respites from Car Travel

On the first day we drove a whopping one hour before stopping in Turner, Oregon, to visit the Enchanted Forest.  What can I say, my kids like the Enchanted Forest.  We toured the castle and Storybook Land, or whatever it’s called, slid down some slides, rode some other rides, ate some cheap concession food, got our pictures taken with Abraham Lincoln–yeah, I know, it doesn’t make any sense, but he’s there and so are we, so we might as well.  The kids had a great time, except for maybe the baby, who was still too short to go on any good rides.

On the second day, on our way out to the coast, we stopped in Fairfield, California, and toured the Jelly Belly Jellybean Factory.  This is a pretty nice diversion, though it is astonishingly popular for something in the middle of freaking nowhere.  The line for the tour can take up to an hour.  Fortunately, we did not have to wait that long, but still.  I guess it’s worth it for the free jellybeans they give you at the end.  I think I would have enjoyed the tour more if Girlfriend hadn’t been constantly getting ahead of the group and if Elvis’s diaper hadn’t given out dramatically at about the halfway point.  (Once you go in, you can’t really turn back.  You just have to press forward with faith.)  They have a gift shop (naturally) and a cafe, which serves surprisingly good food.  You know, for a place that makes jellybeans and is in the middle of nowhere.  Bottom line:  worth a stop if you’re going through Fairfield, but I wouldn’t bother going out of my way to visit.  Unless you really like jellybeans.  They make some damn fine ones.

Eating on the Road

Vacation means we don’t have to cook, which means we eat a lot of snacks and food from restaurants, often of the “fast” variety.  Which means that for the first several days of our trip, the baby survived exclusively on French Fries, Goldfish crackers and the occasional Raisinette.  Elvis was basically on a liquid diet, consisting of soda pop and Capri Suns.  (See Jelly Belly tour above for further details.)

Beaches (not starring Bette Midler)

First we visited Santa Cruz and its famous Boardwalk.  We ate lunch on the beach.

Some downsides to eating on the beach:

1.  Sand

2.  Wind

3.  Sand + Wind

4.  Insects

Upsides to eating on the beach:

…

It always seems like a good idea at the time.

Anyway, after eating lunch on the beach, the kids were sick of water play and decided to go on some roller coaster rides with SD.  Well, three of the kids went.  Girlfriend stayed with me because she’d fallen asleep.  It was a very long day.  I actually thought we might never leave.  But we all had fun and got sunburned, but not too badly.

The next day we met up with SD’s mom in Morro Bay.  SD and I honeymooned in Morro Bay ten years ago.  My mother-in-law was not there then.  But whatever.  We didn’t spend much time in Morro Bay because it was late.  The next day we drove down to Pismo Beach (along with MIL).  I built some sand castles with Mister Bubby.  It was pretty fun, except for all the worms in the sand.  Nature.  ::shudder::  SD talked me into going into the water.  It was kind of cold.  Afterwards I remembered that I am somewhat allergic to the ocean.  Either that or I’m particularly susceptible to sand flea bites.  I don’t know, but I always break out into a million miniature hives, for the next several hours.  That’s annoying. 

We did not eat lunch on the beach this time.  Grandma took the older kids to eat clam chowder.  SD and I took the younger kids with us to Mo’s BBQ, where we ate a whole rack of ribs between us.  SD bought a T-shirt with a pig on the back that said EAT ME.

Thus ended our beach days. 

Relatives

We (along with MIL) drove inland to SD’s hometown.  We stayed at SD’s grandmother’s house.  SD and the boys slept in a tent in her back yard.  Each of us girls got her own room.  What was that about?

A couple days later we drove further inland to my dad’s condo in San Dimas.  My dad lives within walking distance of Raging Waters.  I lived in San Dimas for years, most of them in that condo, and I have never been to Raging Waters.  It’s really okay.  SD took the two older kids to Raging Waters, and I stayed home and visited my grandparents, who now live two condos down from my dad.  I also took a nap. 

That evening we visited one of SD’s grad school buddies, who now lives just a few blocks away from where SD and I lived when we were first married.  Mister Bubby didn’t come because he threw up twice in the car.  He avoided getting barf on the carseat by throwing up in his Raging Waters souvenir drink bottle.  Ordinarily souvenir drink bottles are the bane of my existence, as they are oversized and cumbersome and have those crazy straws that get misshapen and are henceforth good for nothing.  But I have forgiven this particular souvenir bottle for existing.

My stepmother complained about the anniversary gift my father gave her.  My stepmother complains about every gift my father gives her.  I told SD that if I were my dad, I would just start giving her cards with money in them.  She’d complain about that, too, but at least he wouldn’t have to shop.

Elvis and the baby both tried to climb into the ravine behind my dad’s condominium complex and get eaten by coyotes.  They did not succeed.

SD says that next time he wants me to go to Raging Waters with him.  I don’t want to go to Raging Waters because I don’t like thrill rides and I am especially frightened of thrill rides involving water.  SD would still very much like me to go with him to Raging Waters.  He wants me to promise him that I will.  Let me assure you that the pleasure of my company consists entirely of his fondness for hearing me scream like a little girl.  I told him that I know this much.  SD asked if I didn’t have interest in confronting my fears and overcoming them.  I asked him if he had any interest in confronting his fear of needles and giving blood with me. 

“Could we have a fun day together donating blood?” he asked rhetorically.

“I don’t know, honey.  Maybe if I brought a book, I would have fun.  Just as you would be the only one having fun while I confronted my fear of water slides.”

He didn’t think it was an appropriate analogy.  He still wants me to go.  I have not yet committed myself to a course of action.

That’s my vacation in a nutshell.

Happy New Year!  Am I the only one who’s still writing 2005 on all her checks?

So I haven’t posted in a while because I’ve been occupied with holiday activities (e.g. Christmas) and right after Christmas I drove up to Seattle to visit my sisters, whom I haven’t seen since before the baby was born.  People think it’s awful that my sisters and I live this close and yet we never (or, more precisely, hardly ever) visit each other, and I suppose that it is awful.  But have you ever driven from Portland to Seattle?  Gaaahhhhh…  That’s one reason why I don’t go very often.  The other reason is that when I go there with my children, they’re always out of sorts because the atmosphere is a different chaos than they’re used to–a pleasant enough change of pace during the day, but without the calming counterbalance of regular meals, familiar bedtime routines and, where applicable, naps.  When my children are out of sorts, I’m out of sorts, and I wonder why I came in the first place.  Oh, to see my sisters, whom I love.  That’s right.  Well, this time I had the added incentive of seeing my brother, who was visiting from Maryland.  Since I get to Maryland even less frequently than I get to Seattle, I couldn’t really pass up the opportunity.  That would be really awful of me.

My sisters actually live a bit north of Seattle, which is nice because then I don’t miss any of the good Seattle and just-north-of-Seattle traffic.  I get all of it.  The beauty part is that I don’t have to time my trip during rush hour to get the full effect of Seattle traffic.  Pretty much any time of the day you can get a generous sample of all that Seattle traffic has to offer.  From where I live to where my sisters live, it’s about a four-hour trip on a good day.  December 26 was not a good day.  Now, I suppose I could go on and on about Seattle traffic and how much worse it is than the traffic I’m used to, but that would be too easy.  Plus, I’m bored with that.  Instead I’ll just say,

TACOMA SUCKS!!!

That’s right, I’m talking to you, Tacoma, Washington!  If you were any kind of real city, people would live in you instead of Seattle, but no, you just sit there like a big stupid lump on the I-5, forcing busy people like me to drive around you and your fat, stupid Dome on our way to where the action is.  Stupid Tacoma.  Why must you torture me???

Fortunately I was only traveling with the baby for this trip.  She was good for the first three hours, but those last two were a real bad-word.

And now for something completely different.  I’m planning to change Mister Bubby’s pediatrician this year.  I mean that I’m going to send him to a new pediatrician.  His current pediatrician can stay just as she is, as there’s nothing wrong with her, except that she’s a woman–and even if I could change that, and she were willing, I don’t think I would.  He’s been wanting a man doctor for a couple years now, and I’ve just been putting it off because I’m silly enough to feel embarrassed, like I’m going to hurt Dr. Woman’s feelings or something.  But she’s a doctor, right?  Doctors aren’t supposed to have feelings, are they?

A while back I was talking with my med student sister-in-law who was nagging Sugar Daddy via moi to go to a doctor for a complete checkup so he wouldn’t die an untimely death.  I told her he was having trouble finding a physician because it wasn’t not like he could ask his friends for recommendations because they’re men and they didn’t go to the doctor either.  And he couldn’t go to my doctor because she’s a woman.

“Oh, come on,” she said.  “What are we, five?”  Then she went on to say that people worry too much about that sort of thing because they don’t understand that doctors see all kinds of bodies all the time and they’re totally indifferent to yours in particular.

I said that while it was true that doctors see bodies all the time, individual people aren’t necessarily used to showing theirs to just anybody, so maybe some discomfort was normal.  Unless, of course, you’re a woman who’s given birth to four children and no longer cares who sees what.

That’s a joke, incidentally.  A wry witticism alluding to the routine indignities a female person must subject herself to for the sake of reproductive health.  I realize I shouldn’t have to explain all these things to you, but I’m just anticipating comments from people who have given birth to their share of children and still like to keep their goodies to themselves thankyouverymuch, or others who speculate that Thanksgiving dinner must be very interesting at my house.  Ha ha.  Very funny.  Now let’s move on.

So I very much like my pediatrician’s location and practice, so I’m hoping one of the two male doctors in her group will be able to take on Mister Bubby.  It should, in theory, make his next well-child exam less traumatic.  (Now that they don’t have to check for descended testicles anymore.  Eh.) 

For my next non sequitir, I shall inform you that I had to give up on reading The Brothers Karamazov because it came due at the library and I couldn’t renew it because–get this–another patron had requested it.  Can you believe it?  The Brothers Freaking Karamazov, in demand at my local library.  I’d just buy the darn thing, except that I already own it and just can’t find my copy, and I’m not going to decide a mere 300 pages in whether I like it well enough to own it twice.  So instead I will commence to reading the book SD gave me for Christmas.  Merry January to you all.

The following is dedicated to Scott, King of the Epic Blog Entries

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Sugar Daddy said I would probably provide a travelogue of our vacation, which is interesting because I hate doing travelogues.  I actually dislike being on the receiving end of a travelogue, which is why I don’t like doing travelogues.  I bore myself, and I sense that I am boring others.  Who wants to see a slide-show of my vacation?  No one.  (Good thing, too, because we took hardly any pictures.  So many kids, not enough duct tape.) 

Yet I feel obligated to give my report.  Get it down for posterity.  Sigh.  So bear with me.

The trip started inauspiciously when we flew into St. Louis to discover that the airline had checked our bags to Chicago.  It wasn’t the fault of the woman who checked our bags.  She thought we were Mark Williams.  He was going to Chicago.  Where his bags ended up, I don’t know.  But it was midnight in St. Louis and our luggage was MIA, including the stroller, which had been gate-checked, for the love of Mike.  They gave us a loaner stroller, but for the next 22 hours we had to live with the clothes on our backs.  (Except Mister Bubby, who had wisely insisted on packing all his worldly belongings into his carry-on Scooby Doo suitcase.  Note to self:  Next vacation, we all pack Scoobies.) 

That was really okay, because it was hot and humid in St. Louis, and clean clothes would have been wasted anyway.  So we went to the City Museum, as SD mentioned in his blog, with my sister, brother-in-law, and their daughter, who is Princess Zurg’s age.  I will refer to her as Cousin Yinda because that is what PZ called her when she was two years old and couldn’t pronounce her L’s.  My sister and Cousin Yinda came to visit me and PZ when I was pregnant with Mister Bubby and SD had gone trotting off to England on “business.”  I was glad of the company, but PZ was less grateful.  She did not cotton so much to Cousin Yinda, who was a few months younger and really, really wanted to be PZ’s friend, much to the annoyance of the anti-social PZ, who, lacking appropriate verbal skills at that age, responded to most of CY’s overtures with screaming, pushing or a frustrated scowl that seemed to say, “Don’t you get it?  We’re enemies.“  They got along much better the next year, when they were both a little older, but since my sister’s family moved to St. Louis, we haven’t seen much of Cousin Yinda until now.  I only tell you the earlier story as a dramatic contrast to this trip, in which PZ and CY became BFF’s, walking along holding hands, having slumber parties until all hours and whatnot.  Ah, family.

So yeah, the City Museum–really cool, blah blah, definitely go there if you’re going to St. Louis, yadda yadda.

Moving right along, on Wednesday we all drove up to Nauvoo, stopping first at Carthage Jail, where Joseph Smith was killed.  That was interesting, in the sense that I can now say, “I’ve been to Carthage Jail.  It was interesting.”  Some of it is original, including the door with the hole made by the bullet that killed Joseph’s brother Hyrum.  But it might have been more enriching if we hadn’t had Elvis in tow.  Anyway, we went to Nauvoo, which my brother-in-law aptly described as the Mormon Disneyland.  The kids played at Pioneer Pastimes, where they got to play some old-fashioned games and run around like ninnies.  The boys went and visited the old gun shop and the girls visited the Family Living Center or somesuch place–you know, where they bake bread and make rope and beeswax candles.  In hindsight I wish I’d gone for the guns.  I visited the Printing Press.  Then we all trucked down to the cemetery, where some of my BIL’s ancestors are buried.  (You don’t see that at Disneyland, do ya?)  Then we said goodbye to sister, BIL and CY and went in search for food. 

Let me save you some trouble, if you’re planning a visit to Nauvoo.  Bring your own dinner.

We ended the day with Sunset on the Mississippi, which is a cheesy, mildly amusing road show put on by elderly couple missionaries and BYU theater students on summer break (I’m guessing).  It was entertaining, but true to Mormon form ran about 45 minutes longer than it should have.  We had to leave early because Elvis kept trying to wander into the river.  Which, if you haven’t seen it yourself, is big.

The next day we finished our tour by visiting some of the historical sites maintained by the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, now known as Community of Christ–or as I think of it, Mormonism Lite.  The cool thing about the Reorganites is that they sell more souvenirs.  I didn’t get the Joseph Smith root beer, but I did buy a magnet for my magnet collection.  It was a nice tile one, with the Nauvoo Temple on it–an artist’s rendering but interesting in that it’s a rendering not of the historical building but of the one rebuilt by the mainline church.  Princess Zurg and the baby got sun bonnets.  MB and Elvis got a covered wagon and handcart, respectively.  Ah, Reorganized Mormon capitalism.

We did not get a chance to visit the Nauvoo Christian Visitors Center before we left.

The best thing about Nauvoo for me was a) seeing the temple, which is beautiful, and b) seeing the landscape, which is even more beautiful.  Both SD and I felt far more connection with the past by looking off of Temple Bluff than any of the other attractions.

Then we drove up to Chicago to see SD’s brother and his wife (the brother’s wife, not SD’s other wife).  I shall refer to SD’s brother by the nickname the children gave him last week, which for some reason was “Uncle Buncle.”  His wife is a medical student, so I will refer to her as…Medical Student Sister-in-Law.  While in Chicago, we visited Millennium Park, got spit on by the giant fountains, gazed at ourselves in the giant reflective bean sculpture and had Chicago Style stuffed pizza for lunch.  Stuffed pizza is good, but it’s got at least two pounds of cheese on it, which wouldn’t have been so bad if we hadn’t gotten the sampler platter of deep-fried appetizers to start.  Later that evening we would get frozen custard.  If there were any dietary justice in the world, we would be dead by now.  But we lived on to visit Navy Pier, view the city from atop the giant ferris wheel and basically walk all over downtown until we were just effing sick of it.  We didn’t visit the Sears Tower because we’re too cheap.  Also, there was a bomb threat or something.  But mostly we’re just cheap.  Anyway, the ferris wheel was high enough, and not a little scary.

The next day we stuck closer to suburban Chicago and visited a small petting-zoo type zoo I can’t remember the name of.  Our friends from Wisconsin and friends from Michigan drove down to join us.  What I found most interesting about this zoo was that each animal exhibit was accompanied by a sign explaining what the animal was good for.  For example, there was “Chickens:  Source of Nutritious Food,” with some pictures of eggs and whole chickens roasting on a rotisserie.  That was surreal.  Pigs are extremely useful, for stuff like glue and rubber and paint thinner or whatever, in addition to tasty ham and bacon.  Each sign showed pictures of the cuts of meat we get from the animal.  Except for the goat because in our country we really only consume goat dairy products, but the sign did point out that goat meat is eaten frequently in other parts of the world.  Then there was the picture of the bunny being mauled by a wolf.  You think I’m making that part up, don’t you?  You’re naive, as I once was.

Then we went to a swim park, where SD was unsuccessful in shaming me onto the 200-ft. slide.  For once.

We had Greek food at a diner, where we were waited on by a server of much spunk and personality.

The next day was Sunday, so we went to church, which was the same in Chicago as it is elsewhere.  Then my sister-in-law’s parents and brother came over for dinner, and SD cooked Mexican food for them.  SIL is half-Mexican and half-Puerto Rican, so once again my husband was cooking ethnic food for people of that ethnicity, but they very much enjoyed it, so that was cool.  Later that evening we went on a riverwalk in Naperville, where we fed the ducks and rolled down a giant hill until we almost puked and died laughing.

Our last full day in Chicago was spent at the Museum of Science and Industry.  That is a very cool museum.  It kicks the crap out of OMSI.  (Probably kicks the crap out of anything in Seattle, too, though, so nyeah.)  I also picked up another souvenir magnet–this one with Chicago spelled out in periodic table symbols.  Ah, capitalist science.

The next day was a traveling day, as we went back to St. Louis.  BIL (the non-Buncle uncle) cooked us our first vegetables in eight days.

The day after that we went to the Butterfly House in Chesterfield.  That was quite awesome.  Kicks the crap out of the butterfly exhibit at the Oregon Zoo.  I spotted all the Mormon butterflies–the Great Mormon, the Scarlet Mormon, and the Common Mormon.  I felt a keen sense of accomplishment afterward, like I didn’t have to feel obligated to do my genealogy anymore.

We had more frozen custard at Ted Drewe’s on Route 66.  I got the Cardinal Sin Concrete.  It was beyond tasty.  Totally worth the year it took off my life.

The next day I stressed out over packing to get home, and then we went to the airport and got stressed out over flying.  SD yelled at some United employees.  I got embarrassed.  Then he told off an unhelpful fellow traveler who was yammering on her cell phone about Elvis’s testosterone-laden personality and the parents who spawned him.  I got embarrassed again.  Then there was another fiasco with the Missing Gate-Checked Stroller and SD got into it with another United employee, who was so snippy, rude and argumentative that I started yelling at her, at which point she turned her postal wrath on me, and I cried halfway to Portland.  Elvis threw up on SD.  The people on the plane were very nice about that.  (Cell-phone Lady wasn’t on that leg of the flight.)

They lost our stroller again, but we made it home with the rest of our luggage.

To sum up our Midwest experience:

Humidity–bad!

Steak ‘n Shake–good!

United Airlines–flawed but sadly typical of modern air travel companies

Souvenir magnets–make me happy.

Madhousewife (to sister):  I like this one because it spells Chicago using the periodic table, and that’s cool.

Sister:  That is cool.

SD:  You can’t spell Portland with the periodic table.

Sister:  That’s right, there’s no R, is there?

SD:  No, there is an R–but there’s no Or or Rt or Tl, so it all falls apart.

Sister:  Too bad.

Mad:  Can you spell my name with the periodic table?

SD:  Sure–[Rattles off several elements that spell my actual name, which I won't reveal here]

Mad (to sis):  Isn’t that romantic?  He can automatically recite my name in periodic table format.

Sister:  Most impressive.

SD:  Hey, remember I diagrammed the molecular structure of your name when we were engaged.

Mad:  That’s right–I’d forgotten.  Whatever happened to those little gestures?

Sister:  They just don’t court you anymore once you’re married.