“Jon? Can I talk to you a minute?”

“Sure. What’s up?”

“Well, I know we went over some things already but I want to know if you and I could go over some goals together?”

“Ok, that sounds like a good plan.”

“Why don’t we go with long-term first. What’s one thing you would like to see us accomplish at the end of a year?”

“I’d really like to see us be able to get out of bed.”

[Insert Loralee Bink. Blink. Blinkity-blink-blinking, HERE]

“Uh…Ok…I was hoping for something a little more than that, but I can see how it’s hard to do a lot of time. So…Getting out of bed and what else?”

“DEBT, honey. Getting out of DEBT. NOT BED.”

“Oh..Ahha…Um…Er…Gulp.”

[Insert Jonathan guffawing loudly and mercilessly at Loralee’s expense for far too long HERE]

“Honey. How on earth could you possibly think that one of my long term goals is to be able to get out of bed?”

“Well, it made sense to me. I’m super hot!”

“True.”

“Jon! I really like my new blogging friend, Rachel. We have a lot weird things in common. She even had a raging crush on the guy who played Almonzo in “Little House on the Prarie” like I did!”

“Duh! EVERYONE was in love with him.”

“You, too?”

“Hell, yes!”

“You are totally weird.”

“I’m not weird. Everyone else is just common.”

When we were in California, I mentioned that we went to eat at a restaurant at the end of the Oceanside Pier. It was the end of a very long and crazy day at a wedding and then followed by playing on the beach. We went back to the hotel and quickly changed for dinner before everything closed down.

Everything was so crazy, I wasn’t paying much attention to anything.

We had about an hour wait for a table at the restaurant, so we hung out and looked at the fisherman catching small sharks and the sunset over the ocean. While I was looking at the barnacles clinging to the bottom of the pier posts, I noticed that James was wearing AWFULLY long pants.

“James? What size pants are those?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ve never seen them before. How big are they in the waist?”

He lifted up his shirt to show me and suddenly the light went on.

“JAMES RHETT! WHY ARE YOU WEARING MY JEANS?!!!!!!!!”

“I didn’t know they were your jeans. They were sitting on the chair by the desk.”

“Why would you wear jeans that were so big, then?”

“Well, my inner-guy voice said they were comfortable and that I wouldn’t have to move all of Christopher’s bags off of mine to find my jeans and my inner-girl voice thought that they were cute.”

I looked at Jon.

“Hey, don’t look at me. I don’t have an inner-girl voice.“

There is something you should know about Utah Mormons. They are fond of wearing brightly colored matching t-shirts at family reunions,when they travel en mass to amusement parks, or take the whole clan on vacation. Usually there is some “Catchy” little saying on it like “The Furgeson Clan! Doing GREAT In 2008!!!!”

It makes me shudder.

My mother is coming on our trip to California with our family and she came over today to help me prepare.

“Do they still have that custom made T-Shirt shop on main street?”

“No. It closed down…..WHY DO YOU ASK??”

“Oh, I thought it would be fun to get matching bright pink shirts that say, “I Love Wheat Storage” to wear to Disneyland and embarrass you to death.”

Who knew my mother could be so diabolical? So sinister?? So witty???

She totally just went up in my estimation.

Cool.

“James, why are are you sitting there with your head in your hands? Eat your lunch.”

“I’m just sitting here tortured with thinking, Mom.”

“Why?”

“Because! One day I’m going to hit puberty and then I know I will actually start to do the un-THINKABLE.  I will LIKE GIRLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“I’m sorry son, but it’s true.”

“I know. It’s a fate worse than death!!!!!!!!!!”

“Well, you won’t think that when it happens. Just make sure you’re always kind, and a gentleman and treat girls and yourself with respect.”

“MOM! If I’m going to go to all the yuckky trouble and torture of LIKING a girl enough to actually WANT to (Shudder)go on a date, why would I be a jerk to her?! I mean, that just wouldn’t make any sense, right?”

“True enough, son. True enough.”

“Besides, you said if I’m ever anything but a ‘Polite young man’ I wouldn’t be allowed to drive the car until I’m 30, so I HAVE to be nice or parish forever on my dirt bike.”

“I’m glad you pay attention. Now eat your food.”

Ack. It has been so hella-busy up in my neck of the woods. I’m so behind at this point that I think I’m just going to fling captioned photos at you to make sure it’s documented and then I have GOT to do my laundry or I will soon be re-enacting “Lady Godiva’s Ride” the next time I go to the corner gas station to get my Diet Coke fix. *YES* that would be a bad thing.

Memorial Day was, well…Memorial Day. I don’t really know what to say about it because the holiday has sort of changed for me since Matthew died. It just isn’t all about grilling and frisbee and having a long weekend anymore, you know? Let’s just say it’s getting easier. It helped that my family had a big gathering for my parent’s wedding anniversary and so I had everyone around and a lot going on as a distraction.

After a ton of changes on time, day and location, we ended up having lunch on Saturday at…Golden Corral.

I hate Buffet’s. HATE THEM. Everything about them makes me slightly queasy and makes me want to spray myself down with Lysol every few minutes. That whole strategy about designing the atmosphere to get people OUT of the restaurant? IT WORKS.

BUT!

I LOVED IT. Know why? Because 1: It is my Dad’s favorite place to eat, so therefore he was happy and 2: It meant that there was NO KARAOKE, OR LINE DANCING!!!!! Therefore, I heart Golden Coral. I probably would have married it if it had asked me that day. (And just think of the interesting News Blurb THAT would have made. As if Utah wasn’t already weird enough in that respect.)

Although there was no line dancing or Karaoke, we did have to listen to musical selections by my twin sister.  Still, it wasn’t too bad seeing her. (We have a touchy relationship. Nuff said.)

Everyone but Brad, who lives in St.Paul, was able to come. Except for my mom freaking out and getting huffy over seating arrangements it was a pretty ok day.

Tuesday was my parent’s actual anniversary. May 29, 1957. They were married in Nauvoo, Illinois in The John Taylor Home. Actually, if you are up on your Mormon history, they were the first LDS couple to be married in Nauvoo since the exodus (You’ll have to just look it up, people). At least, that is what the officiator told them. Who knows? Nice story, though.

In addition to the family gathering on Saturday, my parents had an open house with a buffet for family and friends at their house on Tuesday. My parents coped with the planning fairly amicably and it eased even more when we found out that their crazy dog would be kenneled for the week. YAY.

They have been planning this for a long time and really got every little detail exactly how they wanted it. They even had their buffet table, china and serving dishes laid out weeks before. Then they had little slips of paper with what was going to be served out of them written down and placed in each dish. HOW THE FREAK DID I COME FROM THESE PEOPLE AND WHY DIDN’T I GET THOSE GENES?!!! Seriously, my parents are highly organized and “Just so”. You could say I am not.

Ehem. As my mother told me when I bitched about being so random and chaotic, “You were always this way, even as a tiny child. You would go to get a washcloth from the linen closet and there would be a nicely folded stack of them and you would take one you wanted, regardless of where it was placed. You’d just pull it out from the middle, half the stack would fall over and you’d just leave them there and merrily go hop in the tub. I don’t understand behavior like that.”

Sucks.

Back on topic!

My brother, Rhett came up to help out and participate.

So did my sister, Melanie. Poor Melly. She had her hands full keeping me and Rhett (Aka “The strangest person on the planet”) in line.

My wonderful friend, “M.E.” came and helped slug it out in the trenches, too. We spent a lot of time in my parent’s laundry room which served as an awesome butler’s pantry. We called it “Servants Quarters”. She’s such a great sport and really helped out with great advice and hard work. She was also willing to take home loads of leftovers so that me and my siblings weren’t all drowning in them, too. It all went well. In fact, I think the only real ‘Mishap’ is that my mom thought I used too much filling in my lemon bars (Whatever).

Lots of people came and had a great time. My awesome aunt, Leotha, made the trip even though she has been in really bad health the last several years.

I was happy some of my friends were there, too. Brian J. and his family came by as well. This photo sucks. Blame Jonathan.

My parent’s cut their wedding cake while there were still people around and actually made lip contact. I’m just glad my mother is still speaking to me when I proclaimed that I finally had film documentation that we were not all left by the stork. (Hey, it was funny!).

Over all, it was a much nicer, and more pleasant day than I thought that it would be. Everyone had a great time, the food was awesome and my no one bickered even once. They had a REALLY good time and after 50 freaking years, I think it was not only very deserved, but a very nice memory for everyone.

A snippet of a conversation between Jonathan and I about how our lives never seem to go “As anticipated”:

“I think a lot more of our life would go according to plan, but you have chaos-tornado me added to the mix and that usually doesn’t bode well for a clean and simple equation, now does it, Jonathan?”

“It’s hard to calculate with a variable, baby.”

“True.”