As Bizarre as High School

Thumper was a year younger than me in school.  I knew him all through elementary and high school.  I never knew why he was nicknamed Thumper.

In high school, my senior year, we ended up in the same yearbook class.

Here's the class:

What can I say?  It was 1991 but the 80s died hard in our hamlet.  Thumper's the one on the left.

He teased me.  A lot.  He called me the Cattle Baroness because of the overly modest dress I wore to a formal dance.  He teased me and my friend about being nerds with our physics and calculus classes.  He'd pick me up and pretend to throw me against the lockers in the hallway.  He'd simultaneously kick the lockers so it sounded like I was being pummeled.  Sometimes I thought he'd really smack me into the lockers...and it would be the end of Thelma.

We were as different as any two people could be but bound by geography and parallel childhoods, we were friends.

For one thing, he was very very funny and I've always been easily amused.

After my freshman year of college, we both worked at The Burger Express.  He still teased me and mocked my driving and anything else he could possibly think of but he made me spectacular hamburgers when I asked him to and he made the depressing business of working in a fast food restaurant more bearable.

The next summer, I was putting gas in my car in a neighboring town.  I heard a deep voice calling my name.  I looked around but didn't see anyone I recognized.

I kept hearing a voice calling my name though.

And I kept looking around...feeling like an idiot.

Then I heard a laugh I recognized and Thumper was in a huge black pickup truck with tinted windows.  The window was cracked enough for him to call my name and to laugh at my confusion.  We briefly said hello and I haven't seen him since.

Then not too long ago he friended me on facebook.

I'd forgotten all about Thumper.

I haven't really caught up on his life though because his updates were so peppered with obscenities that I've hidden him from my view.  (I am after all the girl with the overly modest dress.)

He wished me happy birthday though.  And suddenly facebook became as bizarre in its connections as high school was.

Without those thrown-together-in-a-small-town ties, I never would have been friends with many of the people I went to school with.  I think I was enriched by my assorted friends in high school though.  And staying in (sort of) touch with them on facebook is good too.

I had to smile remembering Thumper.

You Say It's Your Birthday

It's my birthday too.

(contrary to how this picture looks, we weren't on an awkward first date and I wasn't armless)

For 18 years, Adam and I have been celebrating our birthdays together (except for when he was in Finland...then we were apart).

In this (faded) picture, I'm delighted with my gift and Adam thinks I'm crazy--not for the last time.  I wonder what he would have thought if someone told him "someday you'll marry that crazy person".

We aren't very efficient when planning how to celebrate.

What do you want to do for your birthday?

It's your birthday too.  What do YOU want to do?

is it just me or do I have three legs in this picture?

Do you want to go out to dinner?

Do YOU?  It's your birthday too.

Where should we go?

Where do YOU want to go?

It's your birthday too.

 One of our friends, Robbie, has a birthday the day before ours.

Should we go to a movie?

Do YOU want to go to a movie?

It's your birthday.

Well, it's yours too.

What kind of cake?

(Do you see what I mean?)

On the morning of one of our birthdays in college, Adam knocked on my apartment door early in the morning with the ingredients to make me french toast, which is my favorite breakfast.

Last night he went to the store (after I was asleep) and bought all the things needed so our kids could make us french toast.  It had been Mark's idea.

There's no one I'd rather celebrate my birthday with than Adam.

No one.

Yesterday I made a series of mistakes related to my inability to effectively read instructions and then some related to the computer.  I'm impatient and impetuous and dive into things without really knowing what I'm doing.

It was demoralizing.

Adam nudged me into our room and put his arms around me.  "I'm an idiot," I said, into his chest.

"No," he said, "You are brave.  You try things that are out of your comfort zone."

Do celebrities with scandals know about Adam?

Because he's good at putting a positive spin on stupidity.

Early this morning, our insomnia overlapped at 3:00 a.m.  We started talking about birthdays and getting older.   

I told him that maybe getting older doesn't bother you when you're happy.

I don't mind getting older right along with Adam.

Because I'm happy.

And he's why.

This was taken last year on our birthday:  at Disneyland.

And Then It Was Over

Before:

After:

And then I had to say good-bye to this little man:

(I "selflessly" offered to hold him while his parents were getting ready to leave.)

And I had to say good-bye to my dear brother:

(I love these two.)

I would have taken a parting shot of Melanee who I had a great time getting to know better all week but she was busy packing (such is the lot of the mother).

Incidentally, Melanee made cream cheese brownies (a.k.a. Why Ammon Married Her) for us while here.  I know Ammon had many other reasons to marry her but really.  Those brownies would have been reason enough.  She kindly bequeathed me with the secret family recipe which trust I will hold very sacred.

They had to leave though and I cried when I said good-bye.

Emma hugged me and said that maybe we should build a summer house in Nevada so I could live closer to my family.

I told her it was a great, but expensive, idea. 

She said, "We could wait a year or two."

Then she offered to raise money for the enterprise by crocheting items and selling them.  She said Braeden could mow lawns to earn money.  Braeden asked Emma if she knew how to crochet.

She said, "Well, I'd have to remind myself..."

It's sad that I miss my family when so far away, but I have Emma.

And that's a good compensation...whether or not she's able to remind herself how to crochet.

You Think You Know A Guy

I know Ammon fairly well.  Yes, he was eight when I left home and he considers me to be from a very dark period in our nation's history:  the 80s.

But I know him.

I know he was sick his very first Christmas when he was about 6 months old and we were all dying for him to get up and see his present which happened to be a pink Carebear elephant.

(To my parents, I have to say:  I know he was your 6th child and you probably didn't care anymore about Christmas gifts and gender identity at that point, but really?  Of any stuffed animal on the planet you went with a pink elephant?)

He loved the elephant though.  He called it Pink El-phunt and there was no lasting damage.

I know Ammon used to shoot baskets when he was very small.  He'd climb on an upside down 5 gallon bucket for the extra height.

I knew he was very concerned about skin cancer when he was about 6 and wore long sleeved shirts and a hat daily.

I know he's always been a builder.

I know he was always always cute until he turned into handsome.

I know that I have never ever seen him angry (but then, neither has his wife...or anyone).

I know that he was a superstar in high school track and then in college but you had to drag his record breaking results out of him because he's not one to brag.  (I know, how did he end up in the same family as the rest of us?)

I know that he always did really well in school and would absently answer questions my mom asked Tabor when they were being homeschooled together.

I know he's a great husband and loving and proud father.

I know all of these things about my brother.

But until you see someone lay tile in your bathroom until 12:30 a.m., you really don't know a person.

Ammon cut the tile in our garage.  There are twenty five stairs between our bathroom and the garage (I counted) and Ammon laid over 100 tiles.  He sometimes had to re-cut them.  Because it is perfect.

Ammon hummed amiably most of the time.  And last night when I was sitting by the fire, reading a book and he was running up and down the stairs, he apologized to me and said he appreciated how patient I was being with him.

He apologized to me.

And he's doing my slave labor.

And I thought I knew what a spectacular brother I had.

My mom said it took 6 tries to get a perfect one.

She wasn't kidding.

Under Construction

yes that is our toilet

yes it is currently in the bathtub

yes I'm glad we have more than one bathroom

(things would be getting pretty serious around here otherwise)

Brothers and Sisters

 If this looks like a-family-reunion-in-Nevada it's because it's from last summer.  Ammon's asleep right now so I had to dig into my "archives" so you could see his handsome mug.

My little (6-and-a-half-foot-tall) brother is 10 years younger than me.

I raised him.  (and by that I mean that I gave my opinion on things and played with him when he was cute and happy and left the room when he wasn't)

So I think I'm entitled to certain things.

Like showing his wife pictures of him as a naked one year old looking cute and (dangerously skinny) in a bathtub. 

Also, I'm entitled to mock him when he's playing on the Wii. 

Because I'm the sister.

Because he's the brother, he's going to rip out the carpet in our master bathroom (who puts carpet in a bathroom?  in the Pacific Northwest? where nothing is ever truly dry?) and install tile.

Maybe I got the better deal in the whole brother/sister relationship.

I raised him pretty well.

Exceptional

Once, years ago, when Braeden was first taking baby step forays into reading, he started crying because just when he had a sound figured out, there would be a variation.  A different rule.  An exception. 

"Why do we have to speak English?  Why?"

I didn't have a good answer (except for besides pig latin, it's the only language that I know).

English though.  Sheesh. 

Today Mark was learning about the soft g sound /j/.  I told him that the rule (that only applies some of the time...much like the no talking on the cell phone while driving rule--it depends on if I need to talk on the cell phone or not) is that if there's an e, i or y following a g, it makes the /j/ sound.

We read words like got, gun, game.  /g/ sound!

We read gem, gym, large.  /j/ sound!

Hurray!  Mark had it figured out!

Then he said, "Now I have one for YOU."

He wrote "get" on his dry erase board.

He said, "Read it."

I said, "Get."

He looked askew.  "No, Mom, jet."

Oh.

"This one, Mark, doesn't follow the rule."

Mark lay his head down on his desk, in mock despair.

English.

It's not for sissies.