Tag Archives: vacation

No rhyme or reason

It’s the day before Thanksgiving here in the old United States. And under those circumstances, I don’t think I can be expected to put together a coherent post. I’m leaving work around 1pm and ‘working from the road’ thereafter. It’s the magic of the Blackberry-or should I say, the terror of the Blackberry. Heidi and Mike’s Alaskan selves will be arriving at the airport mid-afternoon, where my husband and I will converge with them. Saint Uncle Mike volunteered out of the blue to drive us from O’Hare to the Gary train station, where we pick up a car we’re borrowing from my in-laws. Then we will drive to Kentucky to my sister Erica and her husband Dave’s house, where I will demand pumpkin pie as soon as we walk in the door. Does this sound complicated? Well you haven’t even heard our original plan, which involved a taxi and a train to boot. It’s city living, and we love it–but that doesn’t mean we have to like it all the time.

I’m doing preemptive exercises in anti-crabbiness for the benefit of my co-travelers. These exercises involve eating 1 mini pumpkin muffin every 5 minutes, and at the half hour marks, alternating a piece of fudge and a lemon bar. Yes, it’s the time of year when all the vendors we use at my job send us goodies. “Thanks for your business! Seasons greetings! Here are two dozen cookies!” and so forth. Just two days ago we received a pail full of scrumptious treats, including oatmeal raisin cookies and chocolate caramel toffee bars. It sounds delightful, right? However, I’ve been concocting a plan in which I start threatening these vendors with bodily injury if they don’t stop sending sugary goods, because I just bought this new pair of corduroys, see, and they are exactly as snug as they need to be, and it just so happens that the fudge from our chemical suppliers and the cookies from our logistics companies and the brownie/blondie combo box from our label vendor are all converging in the general area of my derriere.

Yes, it’s a battle between corduroys and holidays. I’m not sure who will win and who will lose, but you’ll probably never know since realtime reporting will definitely not be provided.

A full Thanksgiving report will at some point issue forth onto this blog. But until that point, instead of writing a gorgeously appropriate and elaborate post teaching you how to make sure your dinner rolls have the perfect ‘poof’ to them, I leave you with an absolutely random list. It’s all I got.

1. When I was 16, my Mom and sisters and I went to Ibiza for a week. It’s basically a party island off the Eastern coast of Spain. There, I saw an elderly German couple wearing transparent clothes.

The night-life there is chock full of surprises. In fact, any beach in Spain will yield an amazing assortment of frightening visions, like a bright green thong on a dry, tan 65-year-old butt (Valencia, circa 1993). And yes, I’m sorry I just put that image in both your head and mine. We’ll suffer together.

2. Once, when I was young, my Dad and my sisters and I were in Barcelona at some kind of Christian conference. There were lots of Americans in attendance. We went to a McDonalds for lunch—and I have to point out that we never went to McDonald’s except on very special occasions. They sell beer in Spain at that fine establishment, and one of the prominent brands there is “Estrella Damm.” As we were perusing the menu and making our choices, we noticed that every single American at the conference–all probably Christians–has also chosen to come to McDonald’s for their afternoon meal. Dad said “So, what do you girls want to order?” Erica answered in a very loud voice–let me emphasize it was a very, very, loud voice–“I don’t want the Damm beer!”

3. I always salivate when I smell Lestoil, Noxzema, or Burts Bees. Or Vicks. Or gasoline. Any number of cleaning products, truth be told. I look forward to Fridays because that’s the day the guys at my job mop my office area with Pine Sol. My glands rejoice.

4. I never believed in Santa. Do you pity me?

5. Once, I studied abroad in Paris. My host family never served water at dinner–only wine. I began to find it quite normal that we would go through 2 bottles of red wine per night and feel no effects whatsoever. My error in judgment happened on a fateful night when, years later, I assumed I still had the tolerance of a Frenchman.

I did not.

6. The phrase “don’t get your panties in a bunch” is hideous and whoever uses it deserves to have a wedgy that they are in no position to pick out.

7. Once, back in my managing days, I fired a guy for falling asleep (twice) on his first day during the 2-hour training class. He must have been on something, because as I escorted him out amidst his cusses and threats, he bent over and attempted to light the office carpet on fire with his cigarette lighter.

I’m happy to say that not only was he unsuccessful, but the cops got there dang fast.

8. When explaining to my Mom where we had stopped for dinner on our way to Wisconsin to visit her and my dad, she said: “What? The pandex breasts??”

“No, Mom,” I said, “we went to Panda Express.” Say it fast 5 times and you’ll completely understand the confusion.

I’m not sure what a pandex breast is, but it sounds like a fakey to me.

9. My most cherished dream as a 10 and 11 year old was to ride a horse wearing a beautiful flowing dress. These dreams were fulfilled during the magical summer of 1993.

Please note the white gloves.

10. When I was 7 years old I wrote the following poem in my journal to express my sentiments towards my younger sister Erica: “Erica is stupid, Erica I hate, Erica is nothing but a little bit of bait.”

11. I used to sing in a church choir when I was in high school. One day I came to a performance early to help set up sound with my parents. I was wearing a fitted, knee-length skirt, and as I (of course) tripped down the stage steps and fell face-forward on the floor, it split it all the way up the back. Right in front of the guy that liked me at the time.

12. My brother-in-law Mike won a ‘cutest baby’ contest.

HAHAHA heeee heee hIHIHI Hoooooo!!!!! (wiping eyes)

Oh–and I am forbidden to call that contest by its other name. The name that starts with a ‘b-‘ and ends with a ‘-eauty.’ Strictly forbidden.

Please click here to view his adorable little face. Everything will become clear.

13. I have a beautiful Mom. Beautiful now, and beautiful then–and this is ‘then.’

Check out those mad earrings. I would totally wear them in a second.

14. A typical conversation:

My husband: “You’re beautiful.”

Me: “Crondootiful.”

My husband: “Do you want to watch a documentary?”

Me: “Clarkokardiac.”

My husband: “Um, I don’t know what that means.”

Me: “I think I’m going to go make some popcorn. But this time it’s going to be a small bowl.”

*my husband shakes his head–like I’m even capable of making a small bowl, which by the way I’m not*

*I spank my husband*

My husband: “Hey, now!”

And that pretty much sums up our relationship.

Cheerio friends! See you all tomorrow for a holiday-esque recipe.

The ins and outs of pig wrestling . . . in Egyptian costume

My Mom’s side of the family represents a whole blogging can of worms I have barely even touched yet. I briefly talked about Big Jake and his generous shipments of food over the years, but there is so much more. Stories of a parachuting Santa Claus in Puerto Vallarta, mannequins taking over the living room, my grandmother Mama Kitty wearing lingerie in the snow, playing dress up with Mama Kitty’s hundreds of evening gowns and hats . . . you probably wouldn’t even believe most of it.

And that’s where the photographic evidence comes into play.

Today the topic is pig wrestling. In costume. Was anyone able to guess the event from the picture at the end of my Halloween post? If so, let yourself be known so that I can laud you with glories untold.

Let’s start at the beginning:

My uncle Jeff and aunt Paula live in Wisconsin. They started a yearly festival called “Wild West Days,” which began small but has been growing from year to year into the gigantic affair it is today–there’s actually a Wild West Days committee these days. It takes place in a faux Old-West town with real buildings. There is a rodeo. Local craftspeople and vendors set up shop in various tents . . . tents which my cousins and I have been responsible for setting up and tearing down if we are available. I have personally made sure not to be available for many, many years.

Everyone goes about in costume. Groups of actors do spontaneous reenactments across the town. I was somehow caught up in the midst of one, but please don’t ask any questions. It involved weeping over a man who was playing dead, and it happened during my over-dramatic teenage years.

I have the sneaking suspicion someone may have caught this moment on film, and I can only trust that they have made the wise choice to destroy that footage.

There are kid’s games, like treasure hunts in a sandbox, toss-the-ring, throwing a ball at a china plate, etc. You can pay $20 to get your favorite enemy ‘arrested’ and briefly put into jail. Good money was put down for the incarceration of my high school science teacher. Please don’t ask how or why he came from Spain to America for a summer and ended up with my crazy and wonderful relatives–but he took it all in good stride. He also pig wrestled–photo forthcoming.

The pig wrestling takes place in a giant mud-filled circular thingamaging. The mud is nice and deep. A pig is set loose. Teams of 3 people come into the ring in turns, and try to capture the pig, lift it, and place it in the barrel at the center of the ring. The team with the best time wins.  A new pig is released for each team so that no one pig gets overly tired. Oh, and when cornered, the pigs get scared and pee in the mud, right in front of you–into the very same mud you will shortly be wallowing in as you launch your body at the animal and fail to connect with any part of its pink and slippery hide.

How anyone thought 3 skinny girls could wrestle a hog down, much less lift the dang thing high enough to get it into a barrel, is beyond me.

Each team has a theme, and costumes to go with it. It was the summer of 2000. Our theme was Egyptian gods–we were Porkus, Hogsiris, and Cleopigtra.

Erica is in the middle in the golden headdress. I am on the right. Some poor girl that was conned into being our 3rd team member is on the left. We started by parading around the ring in character.

We wore long gauzy fabric over white WalMart body suits. This was our first mistake. Have you ever tried to run in gauzy fabric that is weighted down in mud? We were about to discover that it is, in fact, physically impossible.

We entered the ring. It was very squishy underfoot.

Someone shouted ‘go’ or maybe shot off a gun. And we started our heinously muddy mission.

At one point, I body-launched myself toward that pig.

I missed.

I don’t remember what the time limit was, but soon it was over. We had failed to even make a decent grab at the pig.

At least the copious mud was proof of our valiant efforts.

My cousins Will, George, and Jacob got the pig into the barrel in about 4 minutes.

They were smart, and were unhampered by their short-skirted costumes.

I think they were the first team to even get that thing in the thing, and ended the competition with an honorable 4th place.

My high school teacher’s pants became so mudlogged that the crotch of the pants was down to his knees.

There he is, on the right, looking . . . very dirty. Many politically incorrect ‘dirty Spaniard’ jokes were made by my fun-loving but uncouth family members.

Seriously, take a good long look at those pants. It’s really quite amazing they didn’t just fall off him.

My cousin Eleanor was also hampered by her team’s choice of costume–black sweatpants.

Thankfully there is high-strength hose nearby to power-spray you and get the worst of the mud off.

My next Wild West Days was in 2003. This time, I chose to spectate and watch others pig wrestle.

Such as my mother (in the middle), who pig wrestled on a team with her two sisters.

There’s my Mom, otherwise known as “Twink the Pink,” almost completely submerged in mud. I see the pig’s snout, but the whereabouts of its body are strangely confusing. It’s a big brown mess in there.

Thankfully they got squeaky clean in this tub as soon as they were done. My family places a high value on cleanliness.

Yup.

It’s been 10 years and 3 months since I last pig wrestled, to be exact. And I have never been so grateful not to be plastered in  mud.