Feb
19
Returned to sender
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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!
Looking out the car window on Highway 97.
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!”.
Go team DORK!
Just one of the bazillion eye-poppingly gorgeous mountain views.
The boys thumbing through that barn-burner, Maisy Drives the Bus.
On a short hike near the Deschutes river.
Drake park.
The view from our condo.
Driving home over the pass—this was the most snow we saw all weekend. Bend was nearly 70 degrees on Saturday.
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).
Feb
15
Karma and weekend travel
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Lately, JB has been fucking with his coworkers using the ingenious Annoy-a-tron. I think he’s gone through four at this point, stealthily sneaking into his friends’ offices and planting the device, then sitting back and chortling evilly as they go crazy tearing apart their stuff trying to figure out what in the hell that noise is.
On Wednesday, he received word that one of his coworkers had freaked out a little over the mysterious noise and called security. The next thing JB knew, he had an appointment with HR to “discuss the matter”.
He talked with his boss, incredulous that anyone would take a joke so seriously. His boss sighed, looked him in the eye, and said, “Well, would you have put one of these on an airplane?” While JB spluttered, she shook her head and told him that security at such a large corporation was a very serious matter indeed.
JB stewed all day long over this impending HR appointment, which he tried to reschedule (since it conflicted with another meeting), and got this in response: “Sorry. It’s very important that we keep this meeting, so we can discuss next steps.”
Next steps?
He finally showed up for the 3 PM meeting, only to find a note on her door: “I’m running late. Please wait.” A manager with an office nearby walked by to tell JB that she really needed him to wait, because it was very important that she talk with him. “I GET IT,” said JB, who I can only imagine was ready to gnaw through sheet rock at this point.
Then, a few minutes later . . . a bunch of his Annoy-a-tron’d coworkers came running up to slap their knees, bray with hysterical laughter, and tell him it was all a setup. “Dude, your face!” they howled, and JB sat there, dumbstruck by the power of What Goes Around Comes Around.
Karma’s a bitch, ain’t she?
:::
In other news, we are going to be doing some mad packing tonight in order to leave town tomorrow for Bend, where we’re staying for the weekend. It’s kind of a birthday-related getaway, since yours truly will be a whopping 33 on Monday (side note: JB was going to wrap some presents for me last night, and came to me to ask where the gift wrap was. “‘The’ gift wrap?” I said. “Um, at the store? In the gift wrap aisle?” We eventually found some old Christmas wrapping, but COME ON), although let’s be real, since we’re bring the boy it’s not so much of a “getaway” as it is “traveling with a very active toddler”. We’ll all be slugging the Children’s Benadryl by hour five, I’m sure.
And what about you? What do you have planned for the weekend ahead?
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