Traversed City...

Holy fuckdick, what a week. The spawn and I rolled into town mid-afternoon today and my ass is ready for a three day hiber-coma. Of course, because it wasn't the Old Lady's family we were forced to cohabitate with all week, she got to come back on Thursday -- thus she appeared all fresh and dewy by the time we stumbled home. She said she had to come home early so she could get some "work" done, but we all know what that means -- she had to rush back to meet with her dealer so she could score some fresh Vitamin Potter to mainline up her jonesin'Ass-kaban. What a Hor... crux.

I don't really know what to highlight from the trip... never has so much, and so little, happened over the course of a week. I won't go into all the details because A) it would be a huge bore for you and 2) I don't know if I'm ready to relive it again so soon. Let's see...

On the second day, Mr. Z puked his guts out... again. I don't think it was stomach flu this time, though. I think it was a combination of inhaling an entire meal in about six seconds, chugging four glasses of milk, and being a pretty major spazmo, on top of it all. The Old Lady was dealing with him in the bathroom when I walked in. She was holding a clear garbage bag that was weighted down with a day's worth of the digestables found in an eight-year-old's colon. It was truly impressive -- kinda looked like a bag of minestrone and cheez whiz soup. Con carne.

Miss O had a great time with her cousin, Miss W. I think the highlight of the trip for her was during a picnic we had, where she discovered a hunk of moss on a tree, stuck half an acorn onto it, and christened it her new brother, Jill. She and Miss W spent a good chunk of the vacay with young Jill, and I think Mr. Z spent a good deal of his time trying to break out from 'neath Jill's acorny shadow. But you can't blame the girls... who can deny a face like this:



What else? The song for my dad was a huge hit -- it made my dad laugh until he did that silently-turning-red-and-looking-like-he's-crying-he's-laughing-so-hard thing, and for some reason it made my mom cry. I think they were either "this is so sweet but we really are getting older" tears or "how I ever ended up in a family that thinks farts are so goddamn funny is fucking beyond me" tears. Either way, I think we achieved our goal.

And the rest is kinda just vacationy shit. Yes, we climbed some bigass dunes and I had one or two minor infarctions along the way:



Yes, we went swimming in the lake -- a lake so fucking cold that, since my swim, my balls have permanently relocated up to my neck, or what I now refer to as my "throatum."

Yes, it was great to spend time with my family, but I realized that we all live in different states so we don't end up bickering each other to death. And, while I held my tongue at the breakfast table yesterday, I must take this moment to say to my parents (who thankfully do not read this blog), "I'm sorry, but David Brooks is a complete and utter shit-gargler, and no, I do not think he's smart, or thoughtful, and he does not occasionally provide an interesting point of view from the other side and, frankly, I don't know how you can both call yourselves democrats and still read his column without taking a steaming dump on his fucking byline." Ah, that feels much better.

It was a great trip, though, and while I ended up with a cold and I'm way the fuck more tired now than I was when I left, it felt good to do nothing for a week and "just be." ("I always take a meat sandwich with me.") I don't feel recharged, or any bullshit like that, but the trip did manage to shake me out of my day to day zombie-walk a little bit and remind me that I like to be "outside," and hang out with my family and "talk" and have fun with the spawn and the Old Lady and remember how cool and funny and wacky they are and just "do" shit.

And I also realized that no matter how much fun I may have doing all those great things, at the end of it all, I'm still going to end up in the goddamn basement.