Every 40 Year Old Woman has a 14 Year Old Girl in her Somewhere

Spring break is approaching, and I must say that after the events of the last few days, I am prepping myself for more family drama. We're going to Telluride ("home") to visit my parents, and though I think it's all fine with Blake now, you just never know really. Old wounds can resurface faster than the blink of an eye, and before you even realize that your joke about always winning at backgammon has a backstory all its own, it's too late!
There's just something about family that makes us all revert to the rolls we played growing up. I am the middle child and the only girl, so that carries with it some stereotypical feelings of inadequacy, constant rebellion, and a sometimes insatiable need for more attention. Scott (my older brother) was the over-achiever highly motivated self-directed one. Blake, on the other hand, was the baby, overly coddled, several year younger third child who was blessed with parents who were pretty much done with parenting by the time highschool rolled around for him. -- I would come home from college aghast at the sugar cereal in the pantry and conspicuously absent curfews for my then 7th grade younger brother. And believe me, this unfairness did not go unnoticed (nor unmentioned, for that matter).
And still, 20 years later, get us all back in the kitchen at 400 N. Oak and we may has well have travelled back in time to 1985. Scott will be there telling me what I "need to do" and Blake will mouth over his shoulder - " Remember my motto: say yes and do whatever you want." I, on the other hand, will probably feign interest for a few minutes before my 14 year old self shakes her head, says "what-ever" and gives the accompanying eyeroll shown here.
So even though at 14 I was certain my 40-something parents were - like - 100 and couldn't possibly remember or understand being a teenage, I (now the one who is - like - 100) I know for sure that I was wrong. Not only can we relate to and understand those teenage years, we will actually become them if faced with a sufficient amount of familial strife, particularly with siblings and parents.
I can already feel the eye-roll building momentum, the hip jutting sideways, and that heavy sigh of exasperation followed by "WHATEVER" rolling off my tongue...I'm afraid it could be a long week ahead!

The internet is weird

Well, I caused quite a stir with yesterday's photo. Everyone is speculating whether it is indeed my younger brother running naked through a room of old ladies playing bridge, and quite frankly the issue was never settled to my liking (or Blake's either, for that matter.) But I have to say, it was totally unintentional. I kind of feel like I'm living an episode of Lost.
***SPOILER ALERT****No - the spoiler's not for you loyal readers...it's for me! I need you to understand that we just started watching Lost this winter from Netflix and we're only partway into season 3 so don't be putting in the comments something like "Can you believe Sawyer killed Kate last week" because I DON'T WANT TO KNOW!! Well, that's not true, I DO want to know, but I don't want to know YET...and I certainly don't want to from you!
OK - so now that that's clear, I'll explain. You know how on Lost there's always another one of the characters in the background of some other person's back-story? That's basically what happened to me with that photo. Honestly, I just went online yesterday to find a snazzy photo to jazz up the Bridge post (4 z's in that sentence). Anyway, I went on Google images and put something like "bridge" in as a search term and that's one of the photos that came up.
I just thought the picture was funny - and I didn't even notice that it is (was, could be, whatever) my brother...but Paul and Lori immediately noted the resemblance, and then I thought it would be funny to do a cyber-poll on FB to see if others agreed.
Well, the whole thing spiraled out of control and I think Blake's a little annoyed at me now. I took down the poll, but the truth is it's pretty funny. The thing is, he doesn't remember doing that, but he says it is entirely possible that he did during some hazing ritual when he was a pledge...if I really thought it was him I wouldn't have posted it...well, that's not true, I probably would have anyway.
IT'S FUNNY!
So Blake wanted to know where I got the picture, and I have been trying to recreate the same search and I cannot for the life of me find it. I'm almost sure I just put "bridge" in the search terms, but now when I do that photos of the Golden Gate and Brooklyn bridge come up...not old ladies playing cards with some naked drunk guy running through the room. I don't get it!
Anyway, now that it's all said and done, I really want to know if it is in fact Blake...but it's kind of like that age old question of how many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop...the world may never know!

All of the cool kids are playing bridge

So, a few years back, I was watching 60 Minutes (first instance upon which you might assume I am several decades older than I am), and they were doing a story on Bill Gates and Warren Buffet taking up the cause for teaching Bridge to school children. My grandparents had taught me and my brother to play when we were kids, so I thought maybe I would cajole Paul into learning and we could have a new hobby. (Second instance upon which you might assume I am several decades older than I am.)
Anyway, we took a class from local bridge legend Norma Sands (third instance) with our friends the Rosenbergs and it was off to the races, so to speak.
Unfortunately, Bridge with Bridget and Michael (despite the close association of her name to the game) didn't work out so well. Mike wanted to try to bluff during the bidding, which really defeats the purpose, and he was dismayed that the "language of bridge" (fourth) meant that not only his partner, but also his opponents would be clued into his hand.
So, after a few rather pathetic attempts to start my new bridge playing life off, our foursome fell apart and we dropped it. (For those of you who have been following my blog, you'll know this is not a real departure from my normal MO, so try as I might to blame Mike, I guess I'm the common denomiator in all those failures to follow through).
That said, I recently had a renewed interested in all things 1950, and our neighbors Bryan and Julie are learning with us. They're coming over tonight for our 3rd game. We've mastered the art of the first bid and are now all struggling with the "my partner seems to indicate that they can't help me with my bid so where do I go from here."
The problem for me and Paul is that Bryan is a professional poker player (yes...that's his job), so his natural propensity for all things cardlike is going to mean that we will be quickly outmatched. But, for now, we can still give them a bit of a game...so wish us luck!

Cheyenne Wells, Colorado - Annual Machine Gun Shoot

Sometimes I forget that Colorado is deep in the heart of redneck country, so stories like this one help remind me of my roots. We're just a hop skip and a jump away from shaved heads and swastikas here in Denver, and this will prove it.
To give a little back-story, this morning I was checking out some local drive-trip ideas to do with the kids this summer. I didn't enroll them in camp, and we don't have a big trip planned, so I am trying to figure some stuff out that will fill the long hours of daylight in June and July. SO, I thought I would check out Bent's Old Fort down in La Junta. My internet travels quickly led me east to Dodge City, and I thought "hey - we could do a Santa Fe Trail wild west tour!" FUN!
I then turned to Mapquest to see what exciting hot spots we could hit in our tornado-chasing Tahoe when we're gettin the hell outta Dodge...and I noticed a little town in eastern Colorado called Cheyenne Wells. For some reason I felt like I had heard of it before, but in retrospect I was probably thinking of Indian Wells.
Anyway, it's all pretty close so I figured there must have been some gun-slinging going on there in days past...little did I know!
Turns out, this quiet little community hosts it's very own annual Machine Gun Festival. It's put on by the local volunteer fire-fighters and you can rent a 50 caliber rifle, machine gun, even a cannon for your shooting pleasure. That's right, ordinary folks out for a weekend of machine gun shooting and cannon blasting. Throw in a few Budweisers and we got ourselves a right fine weekend! Bring the kids, but "hearing protection" is required, so swing by Walgreens on your way of town, or just reuse those plugs you got for last month's monster truck rally.
See y'all there!
www.cheyennewellsfire.com/machinegunshoot.htm

Maybe a cute new background will inspire me to write?

I suppose it's not likely, but there's certainly no harm in trying! And I accomplished my mini-goals for today if I can count picking up my dog's poop when noone else was watching as a random act of kindness!

Getting back to the keyboard

Call it Adult Onset ADD or just a lazy excuse, but whatever it is, I have a genuine problem with sticktoitiveness. (Yea, I made that word up). But as part of that overall problem, I find myself unable to complete some pretty basic tasks such as remembering to give my son his antibiotics after day 6, putting away the folded laundry, or writing blog entries after a week of a pretty good effort. That said, I'm back at it! Since this entry is really more about the process and less about the content, I should warn you - all of you 3 million readers of this blog who have been sorely disappointed by my cyber-absence of late - that I can't promise much of an interesting read beyond now...
Lately I've been trying to get to the root of the problem. Is it that I'm afraid of the success I'll enjoy if I actually finish something I start? Maybe - that's pretty deep for my superficial self, but it could be. Fear that I'll have nothing left once the task is complete? Again, awfully psychoanalytical, but perhaps. Or maybe it's just that I am easily distracted, get bored, and quickly latch on to the new, more colorful distraction that pops up in front of my face. This seems the most likely.
I have long called myself "immediate gratification girl," and I have trouble recognizing the benefit of sustained efforts toward some amorphous long-term goal. I guess that's something that attracted me to litigation - you get a case, you jump through all the hoops of the pretrial process, and in the unusual event that you can't reach a conclusion beforehand, you have one last big push for trial and then it's over...on to a new task. (I know - there are cases that drag on forever, but not in the silly world of petty crime and rear-end car accidents that I lived in.)
But, I'm giving myself 2 months to see how I feel when I do a few things every day. Here they are:
1) Write on this blog for a minimum of 10 minutes.
2) Walk Roxy for a minimum of 20 minutes.
3) Do one complete load of laundry (wash, dry, fold, put away).
4) Extend one random act of kindness. (This has a very broad interpretation - it might be opening the door for a stranger, picking up a piece of trash on the ground, whatever, but it must be a conscious choice.
I figure reporting the random act of kindness could give me at least 30 seconds of material for my blog, so it's kind of a symbiotic relationship there.
Anyway, I've well exceeded my 10 minutes today...the ball is rolling! Now I just need to go find something nice to do...that might be hard for me. We'll just have to see!

Try not to lose your neighbor's pets...

Wow - talk about a stressfull evening. My 9 year old was "hired" by the neighbors to feed their 3 cats while they went out of town for the night...seemingly simple enough task...
Well, the lock on the door sticks, so he needed my help to get in. We went over last night just before bed to take care of the evening feeding. All is well, or so it seems, at first. Our dog, Roxy, had followed us across the street and was waiting outside on the porch for us to finish. Of course, she's like me and Zach and doesn't like to be alone, so, being the smart dog that she is, she opens the door and comes on in...
The chaos that you might expect with 3 cats and one overly playful dog didn't transpire. It was quiet enough, no barking, no cat shrieks...but at the same time the front door had been left open (if only for a few seconds).
After shooing Roxy out, we finished the feeding and set off toward home, when I suddenly realized that I had only seen 2 cats after Roxy had been inside...
Now for the panic! Alex and I take Rox home and head back over, hoping against hope that Wuzzie had simply hidden from the dog and not darted out the door. After what seemed like hours of searching the house, we determined that she must have gotten out, so we set off by foot in the middle of the night in search of the cat.
Eventually it was too late for Alex to be up, so I sent him home and continued my search alone - to no avail...of course!
When I got home I woke Paul (in tears) thinking that I had lost my neighbor's pet and probably ruined the friendship of Alex and the neighbor kids. Paul, being the compassionate one from time to time, set out on his own search.
Finally near midnight we decided that we had better just wait it out until morning and hope that the cat knows her way home...
Morning rolls around and I head over first thing - sure that the cat will be happily licking her paws inside the front door as if to say "got ya!"
But again, NO...so the search continued.
Paul finally decided to try to lure the cat back to the yard with a bowl of food, sitting in wait to pounce on her when she tried to take a nibble, so he brought the paper and some coffee and headed over to the neighbor's yard.
After nearly an hour of sitting in the yard, Paul found himself daydreaming a bit, glancing in the general direction of the upstairs window...AND THAT'S WHEN HE SAW HER!! There she was sitting on her little indoor perch enjoying the sunshine through the glass mocking Paul as he sat shiverring below in her wait...So, I guess all's well that end's well, but the stress of the evening and lack of sleep is surely going to cause another cold sore...and I JUST got over one!
That damn cat!