Vacation

My family found itself in Arkansas again this summer. Not that we were lost, of course, but it seems like this is our second home. My grandparents started coming to Bull Shoals lake forty nine years ago, and we are still here, breeding like rabbits and fitting in all too well with the locals ("Hey cousin so-and-so, zip up your pants").

One of my favorite things about vacation is the freedom one can experience from devices. Cell phones are the main device of which I type. My cell phone never leaves my side at home, and since the advent of the bluetooth, it literally is with me so much it's growing out of my ear. 

Here there is a no shoes no shirt no teeth no direct ancestry no cell phone no problem policy, and I love it. Catch fish, shoot fish, trap fish, stew fish; those are your only jobs.

Unless you're a woman, obviously, then you have a lot of jobs. I'm convinced that even though my mother has driven down every year with us and stayed in the same cabins and rode on the same boats; she hasn't had an actual vacation since before she was married (and since she was married at 17, her last vacation was an eighth grade summer camp).

I taught my younger sister's boyfriend how to scuba dive today. He did great. He's a good guy; they'll probably get married. I'm good with it.

It's after 1 AnteMeridian, and my wife is sleeping. I think I'm going to leave you guys and go join her...goodnight.

B A N A N A S

Apparently my mother-in-law is into etymology, ha, what a word. Allow me to digress...

Etymology or Entomology? That is the question. An insect by any other nominal origin would smell just as sweet, so what's the big deal?
Whenever people ask me which means which, I say that they both mean the same thing:

The length of time you study either is directly inproportional to your chance of finding a mate.


Okay, now I will regress (gross)...

My Mother-in-law recently created a new phrase. Now, this is something she does all the time, but this time she was sober (Ha, just kidding [not really]). Anyway, a coworker and she were shooting the breeze (that one is already taken). You know, chewing the fat, conversin', chatting, blowing some air, at the old water cooler in the sky (eh, getting worse). TALKING, basically.
Her coworker mentions something that my MIL--which means Mother In Law (to some people)--has done all her life, to which MIL replied,

"Yeah, well I've chased that banana around the block a few times."


Huh...now,

Etymologically speaking (aren't we all?), she might have had several common phrases in her mind at the same time:

I've chased that all my life (which would have been a little vague)
I've been around the block a few times (which would have been self-proclaimed prostitution)
I go 'round and 'round about that (which is better than prostitution, but it still seems infantile)
I really enjoy bananas (which had nothing to do with their conversation, but could have been useful information if her coworker found out she had a potassium deficiency)

So, my theory is that in an effort to save time and to relay vital emergency health information, MIL said, "Yeah, well I've chased that banana around the block a few times."

Makes sense...that is one smart lady. Good luck, MIL, I think now it's clear as mud to all of us that when pigs fly, we won't burn our bridges behind us or count our chickens before the apples fall far from the tree, and you will still be chasing your banana around the block.

In a Trance...

I got a new cell phone. It's a Samsung (he did, indeed) Trance. I had the same Motorola for about two.five years before that, so for the last couple days I have been as excited as a Ferrell child finding out they get a birthday party.
When I was doing research, which is by no means an activity that I have been stereotyped with doing to excess, I came across this shiny phone. I read the first line of the phone description:

"The Samsung Trance is designed for the person with an ear for music and an eye for style. It-"

Research over, I found my perfect phone.

It comes equipped with all sorts of gizmos and do-hickeys (on second thought, kids, let's call them "don't-hickeys"). My favorite is the text-readout feature. When someone texts me now, I hear a beep in my bluetooth, followed by a female computer voice reading me the text. This is all well and good, but as soon as my wife and friends found out that it did this, they started sending me inappropriate text messages. Eh, what are you gonna do?
I told a friend that I have purchased a perverted bluetooth since it keeps saying such awful things in my ear, but she reminded me I actually purchased a perverted social circle.
I would like a refund, but you can't return circles if they're square (hmm...)

Speaking of Bad Blueteeth, that reminds me to talk about Oxymoralliterations.

Oxymoralliterations are alliterations that are also oxymoron's. I.E.: Hysterical Hysterectomy, Enjoyable Enima, Loveable Layoff, Beautiful Breakup, and Spectacular Sternum Snappage.

Please, text me any others you can think of, along with any other inappropriate comments. They will be read to me whether I want to hear them or not.

Well, I just found out God wants my life to go in a direction that I hadn't expected...the same direction.

I applied for a job, had an interview, but God doesn't want me to leave the ministry I'm in right now. Praise God for putting me where He wants me.

Molly cried for me, so I didn't have to do that. That was very nice of her, I wasn't looking forward to it, and ONE of us had to. Unfortunately, that left me with no way to vent my disappointment. So I did what any red-blooded American man would do when he needs to unwind: I went to my cousin's house and watched Maggie the Ferocious Beast with my five year old cousins. If I might quote the beast, as said to Hamilton,

"Great Googely-Moogely," God is good.

Poem

One evening I cooked for my wife

but it turned into far too much strife

You see, to be a good cook

you must read cooking books

and no sooner would I read one than die



I bought some potatoes for $2.50 each

Microwaveable, and just within reach

I thought to myself,

"Why are these on the shelf?

They clearly are the far better buy."



I took my discovery home to begin

cooking and lighting candles for when

She would walk through the door

See no table for four

but only one for her and I

My dreams didn't come to fruition

Because I didn't pay the tuition

To the school of "Yes, you can

be a cook and a straight man"

which is a joke that is meant to be dry

Well the story ends sadly my friends

Like you really expected a different end

They took longer to make than the kind that you bake

and 245% more expensive won't fly

But what is the point of this story?

Should it have been told by Corrie?

No, it does have a purpose:

Women should serve us

because men suck at cooking; no lie

I lose

Today I played 18 holes of frisbee golf and 18 holes of regular golf, all in the Rocky Mountains. You have never thrown a disc until you have thrown it across a mountain stream. You have never hit a golf ball until you have hit it off a mountain tee box (I realize that both those statements are debateable, but this is my blog).
I played the best golf today that I have for months (+5 in disc, +6 in regular), but guess what? My brother and father-in-law also played the best they have for months, so I lost the bets.

I hate losing

I win

Molly and I leave for Colorado tomorrow night; hiking vacation with her family. On the day we get back from that, we head out for Arkansas.
Molly and I have good fun together. She beat me again at our garage-sale board game (Careers R by Parker Brothers) that we got for a dollar--that's a lot of money to pay for the consistent disappointment that it's brought me. I say the jokes on her, because I keep losing at the game that symbolizes life success, and she's my wife. Put that into real life, and WHO LOSES NOW?!?

I love winning.

Stephen takes the plunge

I have a lot of respect for this young man, as he is quickly surpassing me in athleticism. This
particular jump was about twenty feet and I thought made him look a little like spiderman.

Relax

Ahh, Sundays...

Following a refreshing morning at church, Molly (my wife) and I went to her parents house.
We are still there. The back door and front window are open, letting the wind outside create a soft jet stream through the house.
I fell asleep to a golf tournament (The HP Byron Nelson, fyi) and woke up to the closing moments of the Indianapolis 500. Now, all of my life I have made fun of the Indy and races like it, but after watching it I really think I should stop joking. Yes, I have a different, more serious perspective now: I should go to ESPN and protest the coverage. No, I'm kidding. I'm sure ESPN has a great reason for scheduling NASCAR events. Like maybe the Garden Plain Middle School's annual 6th grade Special Olympics for Turtles with disabilities (The GPMSA6GSOTD TM) got cancelled due to weather?

It's a beautiful day. Later I think I'll play a board game and eat some good food with my family.

Welcome

Hello, I'm glad you're here.
I don't know how you got here, but I do know how I got here:

Grade school story writer, high school newspaper "humor" columnist, and now, College Internet Blogger.


Wow, it's sad to see one's literary depreciation summed up in a series of three nouns; I guess we can't all get better over time.
It's not that blogging is trashy, it's just that grade school is a magical time for young writers (notice that I specify young grade school writers, as opposed to those who start their education later in life). It is ideal because when kids write stories about dragons and guns--or damsels and ponies--they don't believe they are making it up; it is absolutely real to them.
I miss that time in life. Unfortunately, now I'm grown up, educated, unmagical, etc. Now when I write a story about the gun-wielding dragon who rescues a damsel while riding a pony, I know it's not true. That could never happen in Kansas, because princesses live in England and dragons live in caves in the Netherlands--much too far away to make a sighting possible.

I got locked out of my first blog, http://says-ray.blogspot.com/. Blogspot said something about it being absolutely too funny and they were getting so many hits because of it that they had entirely too much income and needed me to stop posting...or maybe I messed up my login information. Anyway, if you want to read this blog's prologue, there you go.
Enjoy, peace out.