'Cos everybody hates a tourist, especially one who thinks it's all such a laugh

I'm not dead. I'm just working a lot and school is starting and my birthday is this week and my sister-in-law is getting married next week and it's our wedding anniversary and I'm broke as all get out. All I do is work so I'm not interested in talking about work right now. Instead I will talk about the rare and simple moments that I don't work:

Last week we took our lunch break from painting and got some chinese takeout. We went to my wife's aunt Dianne's house to eat it (She is the one I accused of having "noxious breath" when Ethan went to the emergency room last December). Every year my wife's extended family all gets together for a campout in the high Uintah Mountains. We went a couple of weeks ago but I was too busy to blog about it. But here is a picture I took on the way there:



If you are going to have a Nudist Ranch in Utah then you should definitely pick a place with an apt name like Beaver Creek. And you should also have a cool mascot like a bear wearing nothing but chaps, a pistol, a cowboy hat and a grin. If you would like to go, there is a chance that they are no longer "closed due to mosquitos." When I stopped to take the picture I noticed a trampoline behind the main complex so these people seem like they know how to party.

But back to the real story... When we got to Dianne's house with our chinese takeout she was excited to see me and told me she had the cutest picture of me and my son Jonah. I said something dumb like, "Does that mean it's a cute picture of me and Jonah happens to be in the picture?" and anyway she handed me a bunch of pictures and she did have a cool one of me riding my mountain bike with Jonah riding on the handle bars (which pretty much describes the entire camping trip because 2-yr-old Jonah wanted to ride on my handle bars 24 hours a day). I asked for a copy of the picture but she hasn't given me one yet.

Then I was talking to Dianne's daughter about how she was moving up to Logan, Utah to start college at Utah State. That's where I went to school for a spell. Then I asked the daughter what apartments she would be living in. When she told me the name of the apartments I said, "That's where I lived!" (along with Slimysculpin and Sandskier) when I met her cousin and married her. I told her not to makeout in the hot tub because the apartment manager would kick you out of the hot tub for that. I added, "...and you probably shouldn't mention to anyone around there that you know me."

Dianne told her daughter, "You see... you might meet the boy of your dreams up there." I briefly retold the story of how Eleanor and I met and emphasized that it definitely WASN'T love at first sight. Dianne told me the story of when she met her future and husband and how it WAS love at first sight for her. They were engaged within a month of meeting. And then she added, "... he told me later that part of the reason that he proposed so fast was because he was trying to decide whether or not he should sell his Chevy Caprice and getting married would affect his decision."

See girls?!?! You always THINK you want to know what's going on inside your man's head... it turns out that it's always much stupider than you thought. Uh... yeah, yeah, I could get married or I could not get married but I REALLY NEED to get this cosmic car situation sorted out and fast. I shouldn't knock Uncle Jeff. He is very smart and a great person. I just use that as an example as to why girls should just let guys keep quiet.

By this time, I still had half of my lunch left and my brothers-in-law and their cousin started griping, "This lunch break is taking way too long." Dianne started apologizing, "I'm sorry you guys... I just never get a chance to talk to Emmett and I had this neat picture of him..."

I feigned anger, "YEAH, YOU GUYS! DIANNE AND I NEVER GET ANY QUALITY TIME...!!!" I threw my food away and I said, "We'll come back again for lunch tomorrow, Dianne." We didn't go back, of course.

But that was probably the most fun I had all week. Sound fun to you?