Is it summer yet?

I awoke this morning to my 6-yr-old daughter waving a little package of Scooby fruit snacks in my face. She said, “Mommy, this is the last one. Can I have it?”

Damn, those are some good fruit snacks. Really sugary, but they sure are packed full of flavor. I liked the green ones best.

What was even more surprising than their yumminess and my daughter's graciousness was seeing the sun shining brightly through the curtains. Yes, the sun is back. Finally. It’s been too long. Days and weeks of nothing but clouds and dark skies. So I peeked outside and now the sky looks like this…



And everything is green. It's lovely. So today when I drop my “ride” off at the shop to get it all spruced up for our vacation (it has to be at least drivable) I’ll walk home with the sun shining down on me. This is good. Up until I saw the forecast last night I was expecting rain and hail like we had just a few days ago. I’m much too delicate to get caught in a cloudburst. Well, not really. But my daughters are. And they’re stuck with me today, so it helps that the weather is cooperating. It’s kind of windy out there but that’s alright. It’s supposed to get up to 75 degrees F. I’d take 70 at this point. It’s been too cold for too long. I’m hoping eventually I won’t have to run the furnace at night just to stay warm. Is it summer yet? Could it be? We’re usually a toasty 80 or 90 degrees by now. I can’t remember the last time it snowed in the mountains during June. I’m glad I'm not in the higher elevations right now. Ha ha, those suckers. I hope they have satellite dishes or something to help pass the time during road closures. Arts and crafts, perhaps? They probably just drink a lot of microbrew in their cabins and have sex all day long, to the romantic sounds of Hank Williams.




So anyway, it’s been really cold here, especially at night and my furnace runs on heating oil. When we first moved in this place it was cheaper than our natural gas bill had been, and way cheaper than electric heat. But the cost has been mirroring the gas prices and increasing the same, so when I filled up the tank the last time it was nearly $4/gal. Woah. Normally I’d be set until January of 2009. But I’ve already burned through ¼ of the tank, so now I might make it to December. “Guess what kids? You get heat for Christmas! That’s right, you get a warm house! Isn’t that awesome?”

Is it too late to impeach Bush? I think we’ve got about what, seven months left before he leaves office? Hmm. Don’t tell that to Dennis Kucinich. He might be on to something. Wouldn’t want to break his spirit or anything.

How about that Al Gore? I think I’m starting to see a pattern here. Do you see it too? It’s good to be Independent.

I had a few different blogs going on in my head yesterday at work, then I came home to do more work, and the next thing I knew I was on the couch falling asleep with the TV on. Shhhh, don’t tell Al Gore. I’m really trying to be green. Is this a good look for me?



I think the ruffled puffy blouse is so gay. Country girls wear plaid.

Why I prefer mountains to beaches

I’ve never been to a real beach, that is, an ocean. So I obviously haven’t had the true beach experience. However, I grew up in a state with many lakes, and back home a “beach” is what we call a sandy lake shore. So now I‘ll compare mountains to beaches based on my vast wealth of (cough) knowledge.

Mountains: If you’ve never taken a drive through the mountains, put it on your to-do list. They are majestic, beautiful, and clean. What’s even better is visiting a mountain lake, spring, river, or falls. Now let me be clear - I’m just talking about a day trip here. If you’ve never been camping before, this is not the best place to pop that cherry. Bears love mountains even more than humans, and can smell food from miles away. You don’t want to have a cook-out unless you’ve brought your guns. The actual odds of seeing a bear are very slim, but you’ll probably see deer, eagles, mountain goats and other wildlife. So as long as you aren’t camping or wandering off the trail, the worst thing you’ll ever see are log cabins as this might make you think of the Unabomber (definitely will if you‘re in Montana) but I have yet to run into any creepy people. Hermits like to hide and will only hurt you if you climb the barbed wire. And when you do see people they are usually sight-seeing and share the same look of dumbfounded awe on their faces. Sure, you could look up relevant pictures on the internet or watch the Travel Channel, but it doesn‘t come close to being there. Maybe if I compare mountains to sex it will help drive the point home. You wouldn’t choose porn over flesh, would you? Well, maybe that isn’t the best question to be asking on the internet.

Beaches: There really isn’t any scenery unless you can ignore the beachgoers, rolls of naked flesh, bright orange towels, bright orange swimsuits, umbrellas, sandals, and litter. Don’t tell me you can enjoy the sound of the waves and seagulls when every few minutes some one is yelling (as if the kids can hear Mom while they’re up to their necks in water). And there is always that one screaming child who gives you an instant headache, and the couple who can't keep their domestic dispute in the bar where it belongs. You could go to a more secluded beach but you’ll still get sand in your swimsuit. Uh oh, I’m having a flashback to my childhood. Maybe this is just a girl problem, but when I was a kid I was a sand magnet. And it wasn’t just me. I had sisters, and friends. No matter how hard we tried to avoid it, we always ended up just like toy dump trucks. We had to ride home with sandpaper on our crotches. When we’d change out of our suits we’d have to pour them out over a waste basket. Also, at the beach there is no such thing as average. There are only two kinds of people - the kind that shouldn’t be in a swimsuit, and the kind that make you want to see what’s under it. The latter of the two, the sexy people with the rock-hard abs, make everyone else feel insecure and insignificant. And that is usually 90% on any given day. And you always see a few of the unattractive beachgoers giving the smoking hot ones those looks that could kill, like, How dare they look so good? You can just feel the animosity. If it weren’t so hot, because heat tends to make it difficult for people to move, they’d probably just beat the ever living crap out of them for looking so damn good. If that went down, I’d have to reevaluate my whole outlook on beaches. But for now, this is where I stand. Mountains are better.