Please stop this ride, I wanna get off....

I feel like I'm on one of those spinny rides at a carnival, like the Scrambler. It keeps whipping me around and making my stomach gurgle and flip-flop. Everything around me passes by in a vomit inducing whirl.

First Scrambler Spin: I find I don't know how to stop doing my job in preparation to hand it off to someone else. I go into the office ready to work on things, and realize, hey, I won't be here- I've got to figure out how to pass this on...plus the people I work with were less than thrilled about me quitting. They're kinda cool about it now, but they are at loose ends, and its kinda my fault.

Second Scrambler Spin: Mega road trip. I had to go last week to retrieve my little Princess Allie from Canada. British Columbia, Canadian Rockies north of Montana. I left last Thursday after work. I drove about 4 hours to Ritzville, WA. (I highly recommend the Ritzville Best Western if you ever find yourself doomed to the highway between Tri-cities and Spokane) Then on to Canada- another 6 or 7 hours in the car. I hate Coeur d'Alene, Idaho- or Ida-HELL as I call it. Heading north to Sandpoint and Bonners Ferry one just crawls along....to me the worst of the drive. Then to Canada which is better, except when you finally do the math with the metric system and gas advertised at liter prices and realize you are paying $5 a gallon for gas! My sister lives in a picturesque tourist town with a beautiful lake. I only had Friday afternoon and Saturday to enjoy it. Allie and I drove the whole way back on Sunday. I subsisted on caffeine. I broke the speed limit all the time. 12 hours later, we were home.

Third Scrambler Spin: Back to school! Monday we did some school shopping. Allie is between sizes and so finding pants is very hard. We did manage to find three cute outfits though. I still need to buy shoes, more jeans and a coat. Tonight we registered. This meant 90 minutes of standing in line. Standing in the bus route line, lunch account line, PE uniform line, locker assignment line, registration form verification line, school picture line, and finally to Allie's locker to test the combo to make sure she could open it. Not to mention the 400 other parents and kids trying to do all of this as well. Plus the three checks for all the various costs. We finally left, poorer by $70...it could have been worse, I could have been on the hook for sports fees, but Allie didn't want to sign up for sports.

I think I'll sign off now, I'm feeling a little woozy....

Sloth-o-matic for the people

I think I need a vacation from my vacation. I'm tired, I'm very slothy....I have no energy. I don't know why- its very puzzling.

The lack of energy has caused me to lay on the couch and watch some very bad TV. Very bad. Like VH1's "Paris Hilton's Most Shocking Moments!"- which I have to admit weren't very shocking...she's a dimwit heiress who goes to parties, has a sex tape on the internet, and says "that's hot" a lot. A lot of the show revolved around this- Her vacant, vacuous stare as she strides around in campy, slutty dresses often accompanied by a tiny dog. She goes to parties. She does and says stupid things. What would be "shocking" to me about Paris would be if she were able to string together a few coherent sentences, or if she wore modest clothing, or if she took a college course, or if she spent her money on something besides herself.

Realizing there was no shock value to the Paris Hilton show, I stopped off at the "Lifetime" channel. My husband calls it the "man hater" channel because all the men in Lifetime movies are cheating cads, insensitive jerks, abusive or rapists. He does have a point- the usual Lifetime formula consists of Meredith Baxter Birney, Melissa Gilbert or Valerie Bertinelli coping with the fall out of their marriage to insensitive jerk/cheating cad or valiantly chasing down their rapist (or daughter's rapist) after getting no help from the insensitive jerk cops.

Allie and I have a little game based on the Lifetime channel. In addition the men aren't any good story lines they have a fair amount of tormented mother/daughter relationship shows, the bad men are rolled into this as the mother is trying to save the daughter the heartbreak of being involved with jerk/cad/abuser. They are always beyond dramatic. These mothers/daughters never speak to each other in a normal tone of voice its always a dramatic, overwrought, accusatory dialogues.

So Allie and I pretend to be "Lifetime Mom" and "Lifetime daughter" as we do our errands- it always adds some fun to add some drama to the mundane. As "Lifetime Mom"- I'm a dramatic martyr- "Can't you please shut the car door- I ask so little of you...I'm only thinking of your future" Allie responds in an angry accusing fashion "No! you are only thinking about your future! You want the car door closed! Its all about what you want, never what I want!"

This goes on until we can't help ourselves cracking up laughing. Its so easy to do. Mom just adopts the persona of put upon martyr, and daughter is oppositional and angry. You can apply it in any situation. Sometimes we will be driving along and Allie will say, "Hey mom lets pretend to be Lifetime mom and Lifetime daughter." and I'm usually saying, "Okay, cool!"

Anyway, I've watched a little Lifetime TV so I can have some new material ready for when Allie gets back from Canada.

In the meantime, I'm like a noodle sprawled on the couch. Kitty seems to like it though, I do have enough energy to pet him, and he can perch on my chest or stomach and watch Paris Hilton or the Lifetime channel.

Wallyworld or Bust!

Back from the family vacation- and I mean all family- sisters, parents, nieces, nephews, in-laws and hamster. It was "back to the scene of the crime" really--the vacation spot of our youth, my sisters, stepsister and step brother. Its a terrific family vacation spot- Sunriver, biking, swimming, and all kinds of fun stuff to do.

When I was a kid/teen we used to go there nearly every summer or Thanksgiving. In the early days we used to go in the wood-paneled, diesel station wagon that I dubbed "Le Auto-Bus"- much like vehicle pictured above. There we were all crammed into the wagon and pulling along behind us was a trailer with all of our bikes. We crawled up Mt. Hood, passed by all sorts of people as we crawled along in the slow moving vehicle lane. After National Lapoon's "Vacation" movie came out we taped a "Wallyworld or Bust" sign to the back of the trailer. As a teen there was nothing more humiliating than riding along with the younger kids and dog in the dreaded diesel Le Auto Bus. The wood paneling wasn't wood- it was like that contact paper people use to line their kitchen drawers. Plus it was a loud, stinky diesel. Thank the Lord, the Auto Bus was gone when I was learning how to drive. There was NO WAY I wanted to be seen driving the Auto Bus!!

Now, 20 some odd years later, I was driving a station wagon of my own, with a bike rake on the back (albeit, a much more fashionable Subaru Outback, sans the contact paper "wood paneling" and diesel engine!) with my own kid, and my many nieces and nephews congregated around the pool or tearing off on the trails on their bikes or strolling around Sunriver Village with their overpriced ice cream.

It was a lot of fun- all the kids got along great. Only one medical emergency- a bike crash and a cut up foot for my niece requiring 11 stitches. The two older nephews managed to find a few cute girls to bike with and go to the village with. My sister brought a long her hamster, who managed to chew up one pair of shorts left too close to the cage.

It was nostalgic- this is fast becoming the summer of nostalgia for me as scenes from my youth and teen years have come back to me. I used to look at older people as crazy when they went on about "how time flies" and how quickly the time went. I used to feel like I'd NEVER graduate from high school, or the ride to Sunriver in the Auto Bus was endless. But then it ended. After college its like being shot like a bullet through time, everything is going so fast its almost a blur.

I don't bother to tell my daughter or nieces or nephews that time is flying by- they won't understand it. But, it was nice to kick back by the pool and let time slow down a little again and think about swimming, tanning, and laying around.