D@mn That Grass.

It's always green somewhere in the world--only never where I am.

I have lived my life holding strong to the mantra "the grass is always greener on the other side of the hill." I don't mean to do this; I know it's totally fickle of me, and nobody likes a fickle woman {though some in my acquaintance would profess that "fickle woman" is totally redundant}.

Only in my case, the grass is always greener on the other side of the border. Any border. I always want to be wherever I'm not--it's a wretched affliction, truly. During July, outside of Arizona the grass will surely be greener. But amidst the frigid Canadian winters, there's no place I long to be more than my lush green City of Mesa.

It doesn't just have to do with the weather, however. When I am living the life of a single wife, visiting friends and family in Arizona, I miss Poor Kyle terribly and can hardly wait to see him again. But inevitably, as I re-pack my bags the night before I'm scheduled to return to his country, I once again mourn the loss of my family. I have two families, you know, and both of them love me so very much.

I would that everybody's trials could be so simple as deciding which loved ones to visit.

Of course there's really no question: I married Poor Kyle and now I'm stuck with him (hello dear!). I am stuck with him, but the phrase "stuck with" implies that it's against my will. I should say I'm stuck to him [but actually, that sounds a little less G-rated than I normally try to keep this blog. Dang]. Well at any rate, he and I will "be an item" forever, and not once have I regretted my choice to be his wife. *Mushy alert: I love him more with nearly every day that passes. I never even knew that having an understanding, calm and patient disposition would be a requirement of the man I married--it just happened that way, and I can see now it was absolutely necessary. In case any of you noticed, I'm not exactly the easiest person with whom to live. And that's the understatement of infinity.

I only wish that "cleaving unto my husband" as is preached in the Bible, didn't require to take me so far away from everyone else I dearly, dearly love.

I'm lucky I've been able to come down and visit so frequently this past year. To everyone I was able to bond with for the last two weeks: Thank you. I love you. I'll miss you. To those of you who I wanted to spend more time with, but was forced--for one reason or another--to neglect: I'm sorry. I love you. I'll miss you. And to anyone else who had hoped to meet/see/visit me and was totally shafted by how busy I was {I really don't know any person more vain than myself, to think of a whole city full of people who are sad they didn't get to see me this month}: I regret that, too.

Maybe for Christmas...

He's Addicted to the Game of it All.

I come from a long line of teetotalers. One hundred percent, never-touched-their-lips-to-any-sort-of-alcohol, abstainers from the drink. On both sides of the family tree.

In keeping with family tradition, I, too, choose not to drink liquor. I've smelled beer, though, and to me it smells like fermented leaves. [Go figure.] Like a compost pit, if you will. Why would I pay to drink my compost pit when I could go outside and eat all the weeds I want for free?


(And trust me, there are a lot. If man could get drunk on weeds alone, I'd have a first-rate brewery in my own backyard! I'd make millions--but that's only if I knew how to make beer, which I don't. I don't even drink it.)

At any rate, though none of us drink alcohol, we all have a lot of different vices, each to our own. I could talk about all my vices today, but I'd rather talk about my brother-in-law's.

Flint* is a hefty sort of fellow--he's 6'4" if he's an inch, and I'd say he weighs 250-ish.

He pretty much looks exactly like this, except 27 years older. And with hair.

And mercy me, does that Flint ever love his Mountain Dew™. Keep in mind that he is married to a dainty little thing (my older sister) who cooks with whole grains and Splenda™ and hasn't eaten a bite of sugar in four years (except for one bite of wedding cake, which she claims to have spit out after the photo was taken). She's running a marathon in October. In other words, she's a healthy sort of person.

**Tangent: I am typing this in my creepy basement, and a huge spider just crawled my way. I sat up, looked around for a weapon and, finding nothing substantial enough, just watched the spider. After a few seconds he turned around and crawled away towards the T.V., perhaps seeking to get a better look at Cat Deeley, who, I must say, is lovely indeed. Hes' coming back. I threw an empty Dasani™ bottle at him. It missed. He scampered back to Cat Deeley. I will have strange nightmares about this tonight.**

So anyway, she's healthy and he's not and when he comes home from work to reach into the fridge for that can of Mountain Dew™, she cringes.

"Honey," she reminds in her sweetest voice, "remember how we're trying to eat more healthily? Remember our challenge? Whoever loses the most this week gets $100.00?"

"Oh, yeah," he replies coolly. "About that--"

"No!" she interrupts, her voice a bit more shrill than sweet this time. "You cannot give up! You gave up last time, and you were miserable. I won all the money, and you didn't get to buy the bio-diesel machine you wanted, and you still hadn't lost any weight! " She's very passionate about health, my sister is. That woman loves health. (I, too, love health. Only, I like the kind of health that comes from a long snooze in a hammock on a beach; not the kind of health that comes from eating tofu and running 26.7 miles...ever.)

Flint smiles and hugs her and continues drinking his soda, and as I observe the scene, it makes me wonder if this what it's like for couples who do drink alcohol. When the husband comes home and takes out a can of ice-cold Coors™ after a long day at the office, and the wife gets annoyed because he should be playing with the children instead of feeding his alcoholism, is this what it looks like? Of course I'll have no way of knowing because if anyone in my family ever starts nursing an alcoholic condition, it will mean that the earth has come to an end, and I won't be around to observe because I'll be dead--what with the earth ending and all.

But there's a twinkle in Flint's eye when he comes home from work and reaches into the fridge. It's the sort of twinkle that says, "This is gonna be good," and it's not talking about the can of soda. I secretly believe that he only does this to get on my sister's nerves, in the same way that Daniel Wilsford used to stomp on my sand castles at recess when I was eight--they do these things to make us mad, because making up is so much fun. He probably doesn't even like Mountain Dew™. He probably prefers Diet.

Poor, poor Flint. He has no idea.

*Names changed because I said so.*

{This is Just an Appetizer}

I have a lot of posts I need to write, but I don't have the mental energy to do any of them justice right now. See, I'm getting ready to drive back to Canada, which--anxious though I am to reunite with my husband and garden--is going to be slightly less thrilling than my drive down to Arizona. It isn't easy, this division of interests that makes up my life. When I'm there I want to be here, and when I'm here I like being here--but I miss my new little life up there.

The good news is Poor Kyle is totally willing to move down here, which would be as close to ideal as I might ever come. The bad news is he'd only move down here if he could be a police officer, which means all my fears of him dying young would be 99% more warranted.

At any rate, I'm not writing about this yet, because I need to go to sleep.

Other things I'm not writing about:
-My dear friend Chelsie getting home from Brazil
-My brother-in-law's addictions and the effect they have on his marriage
-A boy named Grad
-PedEggs™
-The time I ate raw fish like a heathen (or sushi like a yuppie, depending who you are)
-Meeting Loralee in person for the first time

For now, I am going to ask that any new readers who've come along (or any seasoned readers who have recently started blogs of their own) please leave a comment on this post with your blog address, so I can update my link list--once again, I'm kicking off people who don't update frequently enough (at least once a month) and adding readers whose blogs I'll be stalking soon. If you would like to become a part of my link list, go ahead and let me know!

And stay tuned for better things to come.

{Life Lessons and Muffin Tops}

I've learned a lot in my life.

I've learned that if I wash my jeans and then stick them in the dryer, I will regret it the next time I go to put them on. They will shrink just enough to make me miserable all day, no matter how many lunges I do to stretch them out again.

I've also learned that if I take my jeans out of the washer and toss them in a damp heap on the floor, I will regret it the next time I go to put them on. They will have more wrinkles than the little old ladies on the back pew at church.

But this last lesson is most important:

If I go on vacation to Arizona and eat 90% of my meals at fast-food joints, stuffing my face with food all day, eating Dippin' Dots™ and Red Brick Oven™ pizza and Chic-fil-A™ sandwiches and Arby's™ Beef n' Cheddars and QT™ Taquitos and Carne Asada Burritos like nothing else matters, then, invariably...



My favourite Canada t-shirt will no longer fit. I will have a muffin top (or spare tire, [call it what you will--it's a thing of Satan either way]) big enough to feed a third world country. And my arms will be very, very flabby.

Life lessons, people. It's all about the life lessons.

Tamra Camry Drives From Canada to Arizona and Lives to Tell the Tale.

Tamra Camry would like to announce that she is back in Arizona.

She left Canada on a whim Tuesday at 4 p.m. She drove. She drove and she drove and she drove. She didn't get tired, not once (okay...maybe she got tired once. Or twice.). She kept going, for nine whole hours, all by herself, because she's a trucker--er...a sedan-er.


Finally she stopped at a motel in Pocatello, ID. She only slept for four hours, though, because Pocatello, ID is eight hours closer to Arizona than Mayberry, Canada. So Tamra Camry started driving again at 7:00 a.m. Wednesday. She drove. She drove and she drove and she drove.

She stopped. She stopped for a snack of regular unleaded for $3.79 a gallon. She blanched. At $3.79 a gallon, she ought to have been sipping the liquid gold, not guzzling it. She assuaged her guilt by reminding herself that she was an Asian import, and thus far superior to every other car on the road. Except the Mini Cooper (because what car wouldn't rather be British than Asian?).

{Photo swiped from here, because Tamra Camry doesn't know any Mini Coopers in real life.}

She drove more, occupying her thoughts with an audiobook on her iPod, and getting lost despite the "help" of her GPS (who she secretly thought was trying to sabotage her. Sneaky traitor.).

And finally, 23 hours after leaving Mayberry, Tamra Camry rolled into the Granny's driveway. She's happy to be in Arizona. She likes driving on asphalt that doesn't have a layer of snow or ice covering it. She likes knowing she can drive through any drive-through she wants--Super Burrito, Sonic: America's Drive Through™, Pete's Fish & Chips... She likes being back in the land where she was born and raised (or at least raised, anyway).

She is happy to be home.

The only thing she's sad about is that, in driving, she missed both Tuesday and Wednesday episodes of the season finale of American Idol, and wonders if anyone she knows in Arizona Tivoed them?

{I Fancy Myself a Gardener}

I've got a strawberry, see?


It's not quite ripe yet, but I'm very hopeful. Isn't it beautiful?

But it's very small--about the size of a pea. Here are a few photos for perspective of its scale:



Thus, it is with sweet yet sorrowful emotions that I leave for Arizona this week: sweet because I've missed home and family so much, yet sorrowful with the knowledge that I will be absent for this little strawberry's entire life cycle--I'll be gone for several weeks, naturally. One doesn't drive 24 hours (all by oneself!) only to turn right around and drive back. If only I didn't have to abandon my tender transplants...

...This only confirms that I would make a terrible mother--I'd probably be the kind to give birth to the little thing, and then turn around and frolic my days away at Disneyland or something, leaving Poor Kyle to figure out parenting all by his lonesome.

Poor little strawberry. I hope my husband can find it in his heart to water our garden in my absence.

{Here and Home Are Not the Same}

I'm sitting up in bed with my back propped up against the wall by two plush pillows. It's quiet in my house, except for the dishwasher that's running a full cycle of dirty dishes--we had shrimp tacos for dinner tonight, in honour of Cinco de Mayo, and I dirtied a lot of dishes in preparation. [Nobody I know even mentioned the holiday today, but if I had been back home, it would have been a non-stop fiesta. Maybe Canadians are separated by one too many borders to recongnise Mexican holidays.]

It's calm here--there are no kids screaming protests about bedtime, no yapping dogs or meowing cats. No attachments. Everything is just the way I like it.

In the background, I can hear the familiar sound of sirens--probably police officers on an important call. Probably they'll save someone's life tonight. Without realising what I'm doing, I begin to worry for their safety. A lot of people I care about work in law enforcement--I pray they are protected tonight, as they go about their duties protecting me.

Then suddenly it hits me: those sirens I hear, the ones that seem so familiar to me, can't possibly be real. I live in Mayberry, after all--a tiny town of not quite 3,000 residents. There's not even a stop light in Mayberry. Here, we have two police cars, and I don't think either of them are equipped with sirens--no need for anything ostentatious like that. (My husband will probably dispute this claim. Probably he will feel insulted that I don't think his town's police cars come with sirens. But I don't mean any indignities, Poor Kyle. I'm just trying to make a point.) At any rate, the noise must be coming from the basement, where Poor Kyle is playing some auto-wrecking blather of a game.

It is shocking to me, the realisation that sirens sound familiar in my ears. As a kid, I fell asleep to their steady humming. Up and down they went, occasionally harmonised by my dog's impatient howls--Sampson hated sirens. Sirens didn't scare me, though--I found them reassuring. The knowledge that help was on the way--on the way to someone who needed it--was comforting to me.

It seems like I could have lived and died and lived again in the time that has passed since I've heard a real siren. I don't hear them here in Mayberry, because the only criminals are bored teenagers out looking for variety. [Oh, and evidently there are a lot of white-collar criminals in this town, too, who get put away on charges of fraud and embezzlement. But those are the kind of crimes that simply require a search warrant and a testimony--no sirens. And anyway, we don't talk about them, except behind closed doors. Certainly not on the internet for all the world to read.] I like it here; don't get me wrong. But I also like home. Here and home are not the same to me, and they might never be.

I'm really looking forward to my trip home this month; I will eat authentic Mexican-American food (not the rubbish I dish out in my kitchen), and once again be lulled to sleep by the sound of sirens, if even for a few short weeks.

The 5 (Five) Cs

Here in Arizona, we don't have many bragging rights.

It's hot, to be sure. But really, is that something to be proud of? We mostly just brag about the heat so outsiders will think we're tough for being able to survive it [though actually, it probably just makes us look a little loco for not getting the hell (and I do mean hell) out of here. That's what smart people would do].

But other than the heat, we are hard-pressed to find something impressive about Arizona. The east coast has its history, the west coast has its sense of cool [which is innate in any region that comes with a beach], and the central states have their giant rolls of string.

So Arizona officials got together...oh...fifty years ago...and decided we needed a little more than a giant hole in the dirt to give us an identity. I can picture it now, how all the greatest Arizonan minds assembled, putting their heads together to revamp the state's image. It must have been a long meeting. Finally, though, they settled on a catchy little motto some of us know as "The Five Cs of Historic Arizona," or simply, "The Five Cs."

Copper. Cotton. Cattle. Citrus. Climate. That's right, friends. The brightest minds of Arizona, and those five Cs were all they could come up with. I think it's somewhat of a cop out, myself. I mean, "climate" was already a given. And "cotton" might be abundant here, but the deep South had staked its claim on this country's cotton long before we ever made it into the union {and honestly, who would want to sleep in sheets of Arizonan Cotton when there's all this Egyptian goodness floating around department stores?}. "Copper"--that might be something to brag about, but I'm not convinced; take me on a tour of a real, live copper mine, and then I'll tell you how I feel. Cattle--seriously? Oh sure, because Arizona is just...hopping with cattle. I see them all the time here, in the middle of all the dirt roads, munching on tumbleweed and palo verde twigs.

Our only real source of pride lies within our citrus--Arizona's one redeeming quality. From germination to the harvest, every aspect of our citrus is a sensory delight. If you've never had a chance to visit Arizona (and I don't really blame you if this is the case,) you should make a concentrated effort to roll through here in mid to late March. You will not regret it. That is when orange blossoms are on the trees, and a drive through town with the windows down will solve any problem you may have. Stub your toe? Smell the orange blossoms. Lose your job? Smell the blossoms. Suicidal? One whiff of those orange blossoms is enough to convince you that life truly is worth living. (On a side note, if you are suicidal, please seriously consider seeking out help. I don't think it's something to joke about. And then, come visit Arizona in the spring. It will probably cheer you up.)

After the springtime blossoms wither, the summer heat ensues and little oranges start their process of whatever it is they have to do. It's not until November or December that they actually ripen, and then...what a prosperous harvest it is. I was well into my teens before I realised that some people actually paid for oranges at the grocery store. Every person in my circle of acquaintance has at least one citrus tree--be it orange, lemon, or grapefruit--on their property. Most have more...

...And we are passionate about it. Tell us you prefer the gritty flavour of Tang™ to freshly squeezed orange juice, and we will lynch you. Tang is only a half-step up from Sunny D™, and nothing could save you from our bad graces if you drink Sunny D™ and like it. Nothing. As far as store-bought orange juice goes, stay away from Topica™--and anything generic. If you want quality, Minute Maid™ will do as a concentrate, but Tropicana™ is really the the only brand Archives of Our Lives can endorse in good conscience.

If We’re Going to Go Around Adding Days Like This…

Only in a lovely, divisible-by-four year like 2008 could such a good thing as Leap Year occur. Hey Big Sister, is "Leap Year" a proper noun? (She’s good for stuff like that.)

When I was in grade school and my teachers were trying to communicate the theory of the Leap Year [I say “they were trying to teach me” rather than “I was trying to learn,” because, well…that’s how it was], I remember being so angry about it:

“So, what you’re trying to tell me is that all of the months—of which there are twelve—either have 30 or 31 days, except February, which has not 29, but 28 days in it. Am I right? But then, every four years—not every other year, which seems more logical—we add another day to the calendar. To February. So one out of four years, February has 29 days instead of only 28? Well, why don’t we add another day to February that year, if we’re gonna go around adding days like this—that way February can have a nice round, matching number like the rest of the months? What? Why? Because that would screw up the old ‘Thirty days hath September’ adage? Oh. That makes sense…I guess.”

It was all very frustrating for pre-adolescent me. A bit too abstract for me to grasp.

Now that I’m older, though, everything has changed. Yes. It’s true. Not because I am better at abstract thinking—actually, I rather hate thinking outside the box [it seems very dangerous to me]. I do like Leap Years though. First of all, it’s because I grew up and realised how fantastic even years are. Something exciting is always seeming to happen on these years—like presidential elections and summer Olympics (anyone know if Ian Thorpe is coming back for another go? I’m a big fan). And secondly, because a childhood friend of mine was born on a Leap Year. Looking back, it was pretty cool to know such a uniquely-birthed individual. It was always so fun to tease her that she was only four years old when [giggle] actually she was [giggle] sixteen! Then she grew up, got married and had a kid…

...on a Leap Year.

It’s amazing, I know. According to my mom, the odds of that happening are 1 (one) in 800,000 (eight hundred thousand). And she swears that’s close to a real statistic—she’s not just making it up like I accused.

So happy birthday Rachel New-Married-Name and your kid. And happy Leap Year to anyone whose claim to fame isn't being younger than you really are. To celebrate the occasion, Kyle and I are taking a 24-hour drive down to home. Home for me, anyway.

Anger Management Issues

I flipped off the sky today. Gave it the good ol' middle finger.

Because it's perfectly gray--so much so that it completely devours the horizon. Does that even register in your heads, my Arizona friends? Imagine if you can: snow on the ground, thickly blanketing every other colour in the world with white. Then, take your bright blue cheerful sky and turn it the exact same hue as the stark white ground. Now get in your imaginary car (make it a Benz--no...better make it something with 4 wheel drive), and travel as far as it takes for the buildings and mountains to disappear. Go somewhere flat. Somewhere where the line between the sky and the ground is perfectly straight. Only instead of seeing bright cheerful blue on top and brown scrubby desert dirt on bottom...all you see is a drab, grayish white.

You never can know how much a horizon means to you until it gets taken.

Flipping off the sky didn't change my situation. It didn't change the fact that it's 22 degrees below freezing. It didn't stop the snow from flurrying into my car as soon as I opened the door in the Wal-Mart parking lot. Giving the sky the finger didn't help at all. But short of screaming every foul, explicit word I know--with my head thrown back, eyes squeezed shut, arms raised and fists clenched into threatening fists--it's all I could do.

It made me feel better.

Worlds Apart

I imagine Canadian children get a very different education than those of the Arizonan school systems.

I remember when my 5th grade class was learning about precipitation during Science Time. Precipitation, condensation, all that good stuff. My frizzy-haired teacher, Mrs. Jerrald, got distracted somehow (probably by that punk kid Ivan who always sat in the back. He was the class heckler) and tried to explain how moisture freezes when it reaches a certain temperature. Ice cubes were an easy enough concept to grasp, but we could not fathom how air coming out of our mouths could freeze into fog. (She should have used this link to explain it.)

We were so baffled:

"You mean we could really see our breath if it got cold enough?"

"Cool!"

"Could we blow smoke rings like on Alice in Wonderland?"

"Could we make smoke signals?"

"If we all did it at the same time, would it make one big cloud and start raining?"

So intrigued were we by the idea that somewhere in the world, kids were playing with their very own breath-clouds at recess, instead of trying to catch the geckos that darted in and out of our sand forts--sand forts that would never hold together because...let's face it: you can't build anything out of sand without at least a little bit of water. (I actually remember running to the drinking fountain during recess, filling my mouth with as much water as it could possible carry, and hauling it back to the playground, spitting it in the arid dirt and hoping in vain it would help to concrete my masterpiece. It never did.)

I was always really excited by the notion that licking a metal pole might possibly get my tongue stuck to it. I tried. Lots of times. All I ever got was a gritty tongue that tasted like dirt and metal. The poles could have been made of lead, for all I knew--I was just bummed that my tongue wouldn't stick.

The first time I really saw snow was when my family went to Flagstaff to support my mom as she walked through the line to accept her Masters Degree in Education (go, Mom!). I was twelve, I think. I tried making snowballs, but I didn't realise that there are different kinds of snow, and some snow doesn't hold itself in ball form. Instead, I felt gypped that the first time I consciously got to play in snow...it was broken.

It's strange for me to think of raising my children (if, in fact, I do prove to be fertile [and if, thereafter, Poor Kyle and I do choose to reproduce]) in such a different environment than I was.

I didn't grow up here. I don't know why air comes out of our mouths and freezes. I don't know why some people plug in their cars at night. I can't explain which snow is the kind that sticks together decently--I don't even know the basics of building a snowman.

How am I supposed to explain that where I come from, dirt can get so dry it will actually crack? That some plants soak up all the water they will need for a year at one time, and thrive? How will they possibly learn to pronounce terms like "Palo Verde," "Casa Grande," and "Carne Asada?"

Will they grow to crave the smell of rain like I sometimes do, or simply view it as pure, comprehendable, scientific precipitation?

North for the Winter

I'm apologising now for the fact that will soon be made known to you:

This is going to be a short post.

It is so draining to say goodbye to people I love. In the words of my mom...I can't hardly stand it.

I never knew I could love a human child like I love that boy. Truth be told, his was the hardest goodbye. My parents' was sad, too, as was my sister and brother-in-law and grandma.

After that, I gave up. We just skipped town without saying goodbye to anyone else. So if you are in Mesa and saw me there just a few days ago, now you know: I'm gone.

We've just spent 15 hours on the road and have stopped over in a quaint new hotel that has eight fluffy pillows on its king sized bed. In other words, I've died. And gone to Heaven (despite what my heckler might have wished upon me).

And to anyone who lives, has lived, or ever will live in Utah: I just want you to know that I am impressed at how well you all are keeping the billboard business alive and thriving--this stretch of I-15 has been fascinating. I put away my Real Simple magazine and read the side of the road. Truly.

{MVD}

Sick of baby talk? That's understandable. I'll talk about something new today...

...Like the Motor Vehicle Division. The sole purpose of the Motor Vehicle Division is to remind God-fearing people here on Earth to behave themselves, or else they'll end up stuck there eternally in the afterlife. That's right. The Motor Vehicle Division is very akin to Hell. Hades. The Underworld. Pit of Eternal Damnation. The Catholic church should forget about Hail Marys--a real punishment for sins would be to send people to the Motor Vehicle Division, give them a numeric ticket, and rig the electronic board so that it never calls their number. And if they've done something really bad, like killed a man or fornicated, the Father could find an extremely fertile parishioner to drag all her children in to the waiting area and let them run amok. A retribution worse than death.

Since I moved out of the country and failed to have my address changed, I missed the cut-off for renewing my car's registration, which meant I could not send in a cheque, because it would take too long to receive my tags in the mail and thus inhibit my driving freedoms during my stay in Arizona. I was forced to submit myself to the horrible experience in person.

It had been a while since I'd visited the Motor Vehicle Division; I knew when I entered, the first step is to take a number, but I could not locate a ticket dispenser for love nor money (and I tried both). Finally I asked one of the less-crusty individuals who already had his ticket, "Hey, where'd you get that," motioning to his golden ticket. (Okay, it was white. But it may as well have been diamond, it was that valuable.)

He nodded his head in the general direction of a very long line, and I clarified, "I have to wait in line just to get a ticket to wait in line?"

He crinkled his eyes, smugly looking me up and down, and I could almost hear him thinking, "Hiya, toots...a nice girl like you doesn't belong in a place like this. Might as well turn around and git--you'll never make it."

Not to be deterred, I made my way towards the line for the unfortunate souls like me, twice nearly slipping to my death on wayward bouncy balls and chew toys. [No...chew toys are for dogs. What are those plastic water-filled squishy things that babies munch on when they're growing teeth? Teething rings? One of those.] I don't know why people don't get a sitter for their children when they have an appointment with the Motor Vehicle Division.

After 20 minutes of waiting in line for the line, and I was officially given a ticket allowing me to wait some more. K667 was my number. I found a seat in between Gold Velor Sweatsuit Man and Bubblicious Bubble Gum Smacking Woman. Bad choice. Only choice. D@#!mn. Looking up at the electronic board recording what number was being "served" ("sentenced" would be a more appropriate action word) at which counter, I was thrilled to see that we were on K666. I was up next! What luck! [The triple sixes should have tipped me off, but I was too naive to think that anything but K667 could come after K666.]

My heart raced as the numbers on the board changed and a robotic voice announced, "Now serving number..."

"Here we go," I thought, gathering my bag and car keys, "let's get this show on the road."

"A001."

"Nooooooooooooo.... They've started the sequence over again!" I mentally did some calculations and concluded that there were a lot of letters between A and K, and even more numbers between 001 and 667. D@#!mn.

As it turned out, and as is true with most demonic institutions, there was zero rhyme and zero reason to the numbers called. After A001 came B405 and 406 and then 410. Then on to the letter O and its accompanying 332 and 354. I started keeping track of the letters and numbers, thinking maybe there was a word of the day and the Motor Vehicle Division People have to guess what is being spelled out.

"Let's see...I came in on the letter 'K' and next it was 'A,' 'B,' and 'O.'"

"KABOB!!!" I exclaimed, jumping up and waving my ticket around like a maniac, my wild eyes looking for confetti or a giant balloon or any kind of prize. All I got were a few children jumping up and down with me, thinking it was some kind of something fun. The adults didn't even bat any of their eyes--lunatic behaviour is not uncommon at the Motor Vehicle Division.

When they finally did call K667, I walked shakily up to counter 8, where one of The Tempter's Demons informed me that I could not pay for my registration until my car passed Emissions--another hour's worth of waiting in line.

As I made my way out the door, dejectedly, the words of that less-crusty man echoed in my wasted head.

"You'll never make it...never make it...never...make it."

R & R

Here I am. Home again.

I've been gone three months, but really it feels like I have never left.

I met my new nephew. He's nice enough. Kind of finicky. He expects a lot of the people around him. Likes things just so. I think the general idea of his child rearing experience (i.e. his life) is for everyone in his vicinity to dote on him. Completely. He doesn't fancy me. I'm not the doting type...not yet. And it's true what Adell said about the French. He doesn't fancy that either. He'll learn what his Auntie 'Mille (pronounced "ant-ee meal") is all about, though. We'll get through this phase together.

I'm staying at his house, though, and I'll be honest--tonight's my first night; I'm not fancying waking up every three hours when he does. Go figure. So we'll see how it goes. I might move back to my parents' house before long.

When my plane landed and I debarked, my dad met me at the gate [one of the many perks of a parent who works at US Airways]. It was good to get a few one-on-one minutes with him. Then my mom and my Grandma picked me up, along with Preston. What fun it was to see them all! It's lovely here in Mesa. It's like I never left. The only thing different is that Bath and Body Works had its huge sale, and all my relatives consequently have Wallflower air fresheners in their homes. Mesa smells better than I remember.

I've had my first Super Burrito Carne, and my first Diet Doctor Pepper** from QT. We're well on our way.

As it is, I'm quite fatigued, but in keeping with my 5-days-a-week resolve, I thought I'd better post. So here is the post. Tomorrow I'll write something better. Promise.

Oh, and post script: Thank you to all the people who came out of the shadows and let me know they're reading my blog--what a thrilling surprise! Also, thank you to the 16 people who've voted so far. And whoever said I should never. ever. post on this blog...are you the same person who told me I could just go to Hell? Just come out with it already; I'm really curious to know who you are, and what you have against me!

**I read and re-read this sentence. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with it. Finally, it hit me like lightning: I spelled out "Doctor Pepper." Who does that? It's Dr Pepper (with no "." at the end of Dr.). I've been away for far, far too long.

Goin' Home...

I know, I know. I live in Canada now. It's my home. Well, "They" say that home is where the heart is, and so in my case, I have homes all over the world. I'm quite divided as to where "home" is for me. Torn, really. I mean, my heart is here in Canada, of course, but still...so very much in Mesa.

But let's not think about sad things like leaving home. Instead, let's think about this: I'm going to Arizona soon! I knew I would not get to be there for Christmas, and I was kind of hoping Gwidon wouldn't exit his mother's womb until after I got there. Little punk that he is, he squeezed out all early on me. And now I've missed his first growth spurt, and his mother doesn't know French, and I think she has plastic bottles in her house, which--aside from causing the child to have cancer--aren't green. So I gotta get down there. I mean...I just have to.

Aside from being Preston's new (and very temporary) nanny, there's lots of other things I plan on doing when I get home to Arizona. Namely...

-Dragging Broadway and reminiscing about all the good times we used to have breaking into this abandoned warehouse.
-Eating Super Burrito carnes (if I have to explain what these are, you don't deserve to know).
-Shopping at Target. Oh, Target.
-Hanging out at 5 E. Hillside.
-Visiting my grandparents. Maybe even the Texas ones...
-Going to the Scottsdale Fashion Mall, just for kicks.
-Buying 25 cent magazines at the Mesa Public Library.
-Renewing my Arizona tags on Tamra Camry.
-Going to Costco to look at the cheap cheese. And the cheap meat.
-Going to Costco for any reason at all, really.
-Spending a great deal of my time at the neighborhood QT. I really miss it there.
-Eating fresh, ripe, free (free!) citrus from my backyard. Okay, fine, it's not my backyard anymore...but I'm pretty sure my mom and dad won't mind.
-Going to church at the Westwood Ward.
-Staying up until 3 a.m. just so I can go shopping, and remind the Canadians how useful a 24-hour Wal-Mart really is (it's one of the selling points for my "America-is-Slightly-Superior-to-the-Rest-of-the-World" campaign).
-Roller blading on the blissfully bare (read: snow-less) sidewalks.

Can you tell? I'm pretty hyped about this. I'm only packing one sweater, too. Out of spite. I figure one good thing about living in this frosty country is that when I go home to Arizona I might never--ever--need to wear a sweater.

**P.S. Preston made Jenny Biggs' blog! Check him out here...he's quite handsome, and it will be worth your while.**