Our Planes, Trains, and Automobiles situation (poor Dave)

This year’s Christmas is turning into our own holiday comedy of errors, very akin to what Steve Martin had to go through in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. This is Dave:

Dave is Katie’s husband. They live in “sunny” Oregon which has seen more snow fall in the past week than they know what to do with. Not the fluffy, beautiful white stuff we are used to in Utah; the crappy, heavy, cold, freezing, clumpy snow that completely bogs down an entire state.

Katie flew out for Christmas last Thursday, just beating some of the worst of the weather. Dave was supposed to fly out Saturday. After three hours at the airport, he finally learned his flight was cancelled. Uh oh. About 80 bazillion people are trying to get out of Portland right now and what if he couldn’t find another flight? Luckily, he got an opening on a flight leaving Monday. Yay! Christmas was saved and we would all be together!

It’s Tuesday. And guess what? No Dave. Flights are still cancelled, freeways are closed, buses aren’t running, trains aren’t running, and Dave is stuck all by his lonesome in their apartment in downtown Portland with no other recourse. He’s on a waitlist that has 350 people ahead of him. There are hordes of people literally CAMPING at the airport to all get home for Christmas.

We need a Christmas miracle. Seriously, we do. If anybody out there knows anyone who could help get Dave from Portland to Salt Lake City for Christmas, COME OUT OF THE WOODWORK. I can’t bear to look at my sister’s tear-stained face anymore. They’ve only been married four years and Samantha (18 months) is at that point where she can really have fun opening gifts this year. I’m thinking we could ship Dave UPS and he could possibly arrive with overnight service. Anybody got any in’s there?

Sigh…well, if you can’t get here, Dave, just know that we ALL will miss you tons! And at the very least I hope the freeways open so you can get to your parent’s house in Salem. Here’s a virtual Christmas tree just for you:

 

What I want for Christmas

Without getting too self-aggrandizing but yet staying totally superficial, I figured I would take Whitney’s challenge to list 10 things that I would love to see under my Christmas tree (whether in actual form or as a promised service).  I love-love-love to give presents to others but I try to maintain that all too important deference of “Oh no, I don’t need anything…really. I’m happy with what I’ve got.” Ummmm, sometimes I want stuff. Truthfully, more than just “sometimes” – like, I could come up with a list that would greatly embarrass myself but I will keep this one to just 10 items as part of the rules.

1. This car:

My current car is coming up on 136,000 miles because I’ve driven a minimum of 100 miles a day for the past three years. This Acura MDX would be so nice in a big red ribbon. I figured that Lotus I really want was just too much to add to the list. 

2. Please, please, please:

I drool over the 8 core processing (that my company provides) and would really like the 24″ LED Cinema Display to come with it.

3. A year of facials – two every month. 

4. A ski trip to Vail – no, make that Breckenridge. Three to four days holed up in a cozy condominium and time spent out on the slopes. Yes, please.

5. This lens that I am hoping can somehow find its way into my home over the next 6-8 months:

6. A $1000 gift card to Anthropologie. (really wishful thinking but this is my truly superficial list)

7. LASIK. Only, could I get that without having to wear my glasses for six weeks straight? And can you promise me that I will end up being a candidate after not wearing said contacts for that amount of time? 

8. Two week trip here:

9. A way to keep my job in Utah so I don’t have to move – or find a new job in a year or so.

10. And for the grand finale, something in a box the perfect hue of blue:

(Ha! I know somebody who may have a heart attack if he were to see this…)

Tag? Who ever wants to play with all the available free time we have during this holiday season. Still, it’s fun to see what you’d REALLY like, isn’t it?

And it goes on and on

This is my daddy. Several years ago (more than I’m sure he’d care to admit at this point). I found this picture when going through some old photos and trying to catalogue a few for my own history keeping. As Caden started playing football this year and has asked for some football items for Christmas, I was thrilled to find this photo of my dad when he was about 9 or 10 with his Christmas morning present of football gear. He looks ready to play, crouched in position with his football in front of him, the all-important watch football players wear on their wrists. Yeah, I’m assuming that was probably a Christmas gift, too, because I don’t think a kid goes to sleep Christmas Eve with a watch on. Well, unless they are torturing themselves watching the minutes tick by until they can get up LEGALLY and awake the parentals with pleas and implorements to head downstairs to see what Santa might have brought by.

I can’t believe Christmas is only 5 days away. I wish it were 15. This is my favorite time of year and because of the late Thanksgiving, I feel like I haven’t really had adequate time to enjoy and celebrate the season. Instead of four weeks of excitement, anticipation, and stress of getting gifts all together, a mere three weeks is all that there is essentially for enjoying the “official” Christmas season. 

What gives? Yo, calendar-planning people, couldya maybe stretch it out a few days longer next year? Maybe we could add in a few days like November 31-35 or December 1.5 or 6.8 or something like that. Let’s just make up new days so the celebration and festivities can last a bit longer.

Of course, stretching out the days before Christmas would be more opportunities of temptation – those fantastical beastly feasts, the caramely-chocolately-drippedy goodness that never ends, the sweet sumptuous smell of peppermint, and oodles and gads of heaped over plates of appetizers being passed around forever and ever. Hmmm, it may doom some to pack on a few extra pounds with those extra days added in. But it would all be worth it, don’t you think? Running in freezing cold temps this time of year to lose extra poundage ain’t so bad…once your chest stops hurting from the artic cold, your nose becomes permanently frozen so that it stops running all over your face, the wind doesn’t bite anymore because you’ve lost all feeling and can’t recognize that frostbite has begun and your left toe has just fallen off. Seriously, not that bad. 

But back to the picture above. One of the best reasons for the season I can think of is just the memories of how it was growing up. The combustible anticipation that makes you want to explode as a child. We were never allowed downstairs early in my house. So we sat at the top of the stairs, flattening ourselves as best we could at the top to be able to see around the corner at all the presents that surrounded our overstuffed Christmas tree.

That’s another thing. The Brewster tradition (which started with my Grandpa Brewster, I believe) is to buy the biggest, most ridiculously over-sized pinion pine tree possible and shove it into the front room so that  when visitors come into the room, they have to maneuver around the tree to just find a place to stand or maybe – gasp! – even sit. We only buy pinion pines and my dad has a dealer that is probably the only guy left in Utah to even sell these types of trees. Yes, a Christmas tree dealer is a coveted thing, let me tell you what. Christmas is serious business in our family, secret handshakes and all.

I haven’t bought into the ginormous pinion pine tree as yet because I need a partner in crime whom I might cajole into doing all the dirty work. Trees have sap. I have clothes that have an aversion to sap. So until Mr. What’s-His-Face is permanently in the picture, I will have to make do with my fake firs that just need yearly fluffing. 

I just can’t wait for another Christmas morning. But then again, I can. Combustible anticipation all over.

My welcome reprieve

A few days ago – well, make that a week or so ago – I gave myself some welcome kudos for having survived some pretty typical days. Whoopidido. But I did reward myself for “plodding forward” by taking a quick jaunt with The Guy to Miami for just a weekend getaway. It was his 40th b-day gift, to see his favorite team, the Miami Dolphins, and visit the place where he was born.

So off I went last Thursday morning to weather much, much warmer than I left to just spend time exploring the southernmost part of Florida. I’ve never been to Miami and truthfully, didn’t hold a lot of high expectations for the city. After having spent a couple of days down there, I can definitely say I would go back. There’s alot to enjoy in and around Miami – the beach, the Art Deco, the sports, the sun, the drive to Key West, lots and lots of good times. 

I dreaded coming back only because our flight was pushed back twice, delayed en route, and didn’t get us home until 2:05 a.m. And we both had to be at work bright and early. Sweet. But it was worth it and sometime down the road I would like to go spend a few more days heading down to Mile Zero in Key West or do a day cruise to the Bahamas, or just troll around South Beach (beware – certain parts are, ahem, less dressed than others) and the Art Deco district. 

That brief break did wonders for clearing my head on a few things and getting me ready to really dig down and enjoy the holidays – even if I have to work when most of my colleagues will be taking two weeks off. No matter. I seriously dug some sun for a few days that I think can hold me over…for a few weeks at least.

Congratulations to me

You made it to Wednesday – hurray! You successfully maneuvered half of a busy week and have arrived at the point where you get closer to the weekend. Besides reaching this weekly apex, you should also pat yourself on the back for:

• not getting stuck in any way, shape, or form of crawling traffic when it started to snow on Monday
• refusing to be bitter about the bitter cold
• successfully dealing with an over-emotional 8 year old while picking up school supplies for a project at the grocery store yesterday; you thought about leaving him there forever and hoping the store might gainfully employ him at some point – 8 years down the road…but you thought better of it and decided to take him home with you
• waking up
• driving 47 miles into work and not thinking once (at least in the past couple of days), “Gee, I wish I didn’t have to do this today”
• confidently organizing 7 young 8-11 year old girls at your house last night for Activity Days and dragging them around the neighborhood to deliver Secret Santa treats, thereby hopefully teaching them that it is better to give than to receive
• not letting a kitchen covered in sugar cookies, flour, frosting, tinsel, twinkle lights, open suitcases, a half-eaten piece of pizza, confetti from a recent party, posters for a school project, Crayola markers, Crayola crayons, lego men of all shapes and sizes, backpack, three pairs of shoes, and 3 dirty cookie sheets get you down; you promptly turned up your newest Christmas CD featuring Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, and Dean Martin and made row upon row of sugar cookie stars
• laughing so hard at lunch today with Brian and Ryan that all the stress you’ve piled up on yourself over the past three days just seemed to melt away with the ice cubes you accidentally dropped on the floor (and subsequently almost slipped on)
• staying hopeful

As a reward for reaching this ever critical mark, you get the next couple of working days off to just enjoy, sit back, and soak up some much needed sun without a constant buzz and chatter in your ear from six bazillion different people. Congratulations, me, and keep up the good work.

{every once in awhile I have to give myself this kind of pep talk – don’t you?}

“And in the mornin’, I’m gonna make us some waffles!”

This is what is at the top of my son’s Christmas list:

When he first mentioned this to me, I asked him “A waffle maker? Really? No toys? No ripstick? No new ball?” Don’t get me wrong, I was completely fine with the fact that he didn’t ask for a hundred lego sets or something else equally not needed. But the waffle maker request did throw me for a loop.

I delved a little further into his request, wanting to know specifically why he would ask Santa Claus for a waffle maker vs. anything else that has 80 commercials on tv these days.

“Because, Mom, you and me  just spend a lot of time at breakfast and we should get a waffle maker so we can have french toast, crepes, and waffles all at once. And Ryan and Natalie have one and it’s pretty cool.”

There you have it. We’re going to be gorging ourselves silly on breakfast foods after Christmas morning so you will all be invited to come over and help us devour piles of french toast, crepes, and waffles. Breakfast is something we are good at at our house – and a waffle maker is something I know Santa wouldn’t mind spending a few bucks on to stick under the tree.

Now if I can just figure out what a Bakugan is…

The Midnight Freak Show

Have you ever found yourself begging for sleep when you have a terrific migraine that is just roaring to tear your brain apart? And have you ever wandered around your house with your head in your hands, trying to scavenge any pill possible to just TAKE THE PAIN AWAY?!? And after searching for nearly an hour and realizing that somehow you don’t have any Excedrin or Advil or any other medically legal pain relieving device (because you hate pills and really don’t buy them that often) you come to a hazy late night awareness  that you will need to go to the store and buy something to stave off pain-induced insanity?

That was me the other night. I don’t know if that has ever been you but if it has, I feel your pain. Literally. I jumped in my car to head over to my grocery store before I realized, ‘Huh, it’s after 11 p.m. and my local grocery store is closed. I will need to go to Centerville to get the goods.’ There was a brief moment where I thought I could meet up with Mr. Bojangles who lives across the way in the Adult Community Compound. He frequents the long strip of road that leads up to our two respective communities, riding along on his little Jazzy, smoking what I am pretty sure is medical marijuana. (No, I am not kidding. Someday I will have to tell the story on the little run-in Mr. Bojangles and I had on July the 4th…unless I did it already. I don’t remember what I write down and what I don’t anymore.) But alas, he was not to be found going the 3 mph he normally clips along at – but I don’t think I would’ve asked him for a hit anyway. You know, germs and all. 

Within 10 minutes of leaving my house, I ended up at WalMart just around the midnight hour. WalMart is apparently a happening place no matter what the time of day it is and I was about to add a bit o’ adventure to my pill run. To start off, the second I walked in the door I was dang near run over by two elephant-ish women riding the store Jazzy’s with their little baskets twittering in joyful anticipation (or perhaps they were just reverberating from the impact…). Big Bertha and her twin sister Gertie plowed by me like two cows being sent to pasture. Sure, call me mean but I’m just calling it like I saw it. And it was SCARY. They zigzagged all over the store, draining the battery juice on the heavily strained Jazzy’s, and loading up their groaning baskets with items of a high fructose and unmentionable nature.

Ugh. I ran over to the pharmacy area, snatched up my saving grace – Excedrin-Extra-Super-Nuclear-Strip-the-Paint-off-Walls-Strength medicine – and proceeded to the checkout. THE checkout. As in only one being open. And did I happen to mention it was busy at midnight?

The dear old man at the head of the line decided that he would like to pay for his juice, bottle of Drano, can of Hormel chili, and black socks (two pairs), with his change purse…THAT WAS FULL OF PENNIES. My head is meanwhile starting to send me into an irate state, complete with eyes ready to shoot fire out of their flaming black sockets. Twenty-nine hours later, the old man is finally done counting his change to the PRECISE amount and we move up another person.

The next two people are not that bad. However, Drunken Dave and his teenage son are right in front of me – and I can tell “This is gonna be good.” Drunken Dave was friendly, as in very, very, very friendly. He struck up a conversation with the checkout girl about how cute she was, how happy and awake she looked for this time of night, and what a snazzy dresser she appeared to be. This is what the girl actually looked like:

Seriously. Dave was so far gone he was lucky to just keep his two feet under him and be upright at this hour. After leering at the poor checkout girl for a few minutes, he turned to me. Oh boy. I was not at all in the mood to be drunk-flirted with at a WalMart at midnight with my head having a massive gong show going on inside. 

“Oh my gosh golly goodness! Are you just buyin’ that teeny weeny bottle of pills? Is that all yer here for, darlin’?” {insert clouds of inebriated air}

I looked at his poor son, who rolled his eyes and shrugged his shoulders, and then back at Drunken Dave. “Yes.”

At this very  moment, the Clampetts behind me started to have what I think is their nightly domestic squabble. “What the hell are you buying marshmallow creme for? I told you I HATE that stuff!”

“What the *%@* is your problem?! Let go of my creme! I said LET GO YOU *%^&*#$@&$*%&#*$%!!”

POW! Mrs. Clampett gave a fairly solid right hook to her sweet other half and sent him backwards into the gum and mints. He stood up, not seriously hurt but more damage to his masculine pride, and promptly shoved her backwards into the other side of the checkout aisle. Hand sanitizer and car fresheners went a flying. She drops the the jar of marshmallow creme – crack! (great, marshmallow on my shoes now) and goes full force into her husband.

Drunken Dave appears to be lost in some vision staring at this little scene, his eyes are bugging out, and I hear him say under his breath, “Holy &%@*, I think my ex-wife is back…” and he quickly pays for his stuff and leaves with his son.

And here I am. Stuck between crazy and crazier and thinking that my headache could not possibly get any worse. I just wanted  a little bottle of pills. That was it. I didn’t need The Midnight Freak Show to add to my woeful physicality. But nonetheless, I get Gargantuan Twins on Jazzy’s, Pay-in-Pennies Geezer, Drunken Dave, and The Clampetts to make my night complete. 

I can laugh at it all now. Before, I just wanted to punch them all in the face. And down the entire bottle of pills as I left the parking lot. Moral of this story? KEEP YOUR PILLS STOCKED.

The Guy turns 40 (uh oh…)

Threw a little surprise party for The Guy. He was turning 40 (oh my goodness). Figured he could use the embarrassment. 

Place? Mi Rancherito in Payson. People? You betcha – The Guy’s got people. Party? Late on into the evening. Presents? Lots of fun gag gifts – prunes, old guy stuff (see pic below), and apparently a few bottles of a little pill that starts with a V (seriously, he got the REAL stuff). 

Happy 40th, The Guy! You sure don’t look your age – or act it.