February 19, 2007

One of these days I’m going to pay for a housekeeper to come in while we’re out of town and clean the house from top to bottom, then turn on the heat a few hours before we’re due to arrive—and maybe have a crockpot simmering, too. That would be a nice change of pace from what we always come home to: a chilly, dog-hair-coated mess, with the inevitable disturbing aroma wafting from the fridge and the breakfast dishes growing mold in the sink.

Sure, I could try and clean before we leave, but preparing a thousand travel-friendly meals for Riley to methodically reject one by one keeps me pretty busy, you know?

Even though we returned to the predictable domestic disaster (hey, guess who left a load of wet laundry to fester all weekend long? High five!), it was worth it to have our little getaway. We had a great time in Bend, helped in part by the presence of JB’s parents, who were staying in town with a friend and were happy to hang out with their grandchild on several occasions so JB and I could run off and engage in hot, adults-only activities, such as eating in a restaurant without a kid’s menu.

I really think Bend would be a great place to live. If JB’s workplace had an office there—oh, man. We’d be there in a heartbeat. I love that whole area, especially the smell, that high country pine/sagebrush that envelopes you whenever you step outside. There’s so much new housing and yet all those planned communities look fantastic, not cookie-cutter ugly, but house after house of faux-Craftsman-style designs that remind you of ski lodges. And every damn corner of town has a knockout view of the mountains.

Maybe if we are really lucky we can invest in a vacation home there someday. It’s a long drive, yeah, but Bend’s got it all: skiing, hiking, camping, fishing, snow in the winters, hot sun in the summers, the High Desert museum (hello, PORCUPINE exhibit!).

Speaking of the drive, to my unending surprise it wasn’t that bad. I had a bottle of gum-flavored Benadryl at the ready (with some half-formed, hazy notion of squirting it at Riley from my position in the passenger seat, sending a sticky arch of fluid through the air until it magically landed in his mouth, instantly sedating him) but as long as I remained Johnny-on-the-spot with a series of distractions (at one point I produced a metal whisk I’d squirreled away in the bag of toys, and it was received with great pleasure, because it was a UTENSIL, one he’d NEVER SEEN, HOLY SHIT, and I bragged for maybe 30 miles about how I was such a fucking genius for packing a whisk, talk about thinking outside the box, plus, if we needed to? We could totally make whipped cream!) things stayed fairly non-screamy. I’m not ready to test my toddler-entertainment skills on, I don’t know, a 9-hour JetBlue tarmac delay or something, but we did pretty well this time around.

Photos!

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Looking out the car window on Highway 97.

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Riley chilling with some of the many, many toys we brought. Also, I can tell by looking at this he was about to say “BA!”.

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Go team DORK!

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Just one of the bazillion eye-poppingly gorgeous mountain views.

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The boys thumbing through that barn-burner, Maisy Drives the Bus.

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On a short hike near the Deschutes river.

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Drake park.

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The view from our condo.

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Driving home over the pass—this was the most snow we saw all weekend. Bend was nearly 70 degrees on Saturday.

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A few words about this photo: I did not actually consume that giant porkout piece of chocolate cake by myself (that’s half of a cake, which was presented to me along with a whole pie, for murky reasons I didn’t quite understand), and that’s not really a male stripper hired to gyrate in front of me while I died of embarrassment (it’s JB’s brother, who came by for a while on Saturday to wish me a happy birthday. While gyrating).

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Carmen
17 years ago

Happy birthday, Linda. Oh, and I am green with jealousy…your hair looks AWESOME. I wish I could get mine to look so sleek and gorgeous.

Melanie
17 years ago

Man, Bend IS gorgeous! I’d want to live there, too.

I wish I had a brother-in-law to gyrate for me, too. Mine is 13, so he’s a bit young for that sort of thing.

telegirl
telegirl
17 years ago

Happy birthday, Linda! Hey! Maybe if you move to Bend, we can get our little ones together some day to play? The great thing about Bend is your commute to work will be 10 minutes, most likely. The funny thing is you’ll still probably complain about it… :o)

emma
16 years ago

cool blog!

Tima
16 years ago

nice photos of this blog