Wish you were here!

It's the most wonderful time of the year. That time of the year when we pack up and drive to Island Park, Ideeho for a whole week at the lake. With the In-laws.

All the in-laws.

I'm not saying that tongue-in-cheek either. Even with all my in-laws it's my favorite week of the year. Nothing can bother me at Island Park. Except my in-laws. And even they can't really bother me.

Does that make sense?

I got to drive here with my daughter. Just the two of us. At first we tried to listen to Wuthering Heights, but books on tape always give my daughter a royal headache. Especially books on tape written with an English accent, using all the GRE vocabulary I downloaded onto her iPod whilst I was studying.

During chapter two my daughter started telling me all of her flower shop stories and we got to giggling something fierce. Flower shop customers make the funniest stories. Also Personal Progress stories. Actually any stories told by daughter, in order to avoid listening to Wuthering Heights, are the funniest stories.

Except for my MIL's stories. Her stories are right up there with my daughter's stories. She is one of a kind, I tell ya. A real original. When Gad made her, he broke the mold. There isn't an actress alive who could portray her accurately when they make a movie about my life. I just hope she doesn't kick the bucket before they can cast her in the role.

So while my daughter was telling me all of her stories, I forgot to turn on I-20 towards Rexburg. Actually I didn't even know I was supposed to turn on I-20. I thought you just stayed on I-15 forever. I thought I-15 was like the Iron Rod.

I also thought the sign that said 15 miles to Roberts said 15 miles to Rexburg.

My daughter has eagle eyes, however, so she disagreed vehemently.

"Listen, girlfriend!" I told her, "If I've been on the road to Rexburg once, I've been on it a hundred thousand times! I know the road to Rexburg when I see it."

I wasn't just saying that either, as an adult who likes to exercise power and authority over her children, I went to school in Rexberg for a year. My best friend lived in Shelley. I've been around the block a time or two and I know without a shadow of a doubt there is no town in Ideeho called Roberts.

At yet there is. A town in Ideeho. Called Roberts. 632 people live there. And they are the nicest people you'll ever meet. Especially when you need directions to Rexburg.

But before we got directions, and after we realized we were on the wrong road, we got on The Truman Show for a few minutes. About 15 minutes actually. So I guess you can say we've had our 15 minutes of fame.

See the speed limit on the wrong road is 45 mph. And you know how you always have to go to the bathroom while traveling on the wrong road? Well, the producers of the Truman Show thought it would be funny to cue the slow car with the Fisher Price people in it to turn in front of us for about 10 miles.

They didn't break the speed limit once. NOT ONCE! Fisher Price people don't do things like that. They do what the producers tell them to do. Drive their little Fisher Price car the speed limit, without moving a muscle. Seriously. Even when you're right on their butt, peer pressuring them to pick up the pace so you can pee, Fisher Price people don't fold. They just stare straight ahead. All three of them--the mom, the dad, and little johnny, perfectly centered in the back seat.

By the time we got to Roberts to ask directions to Rexburg we'd already pee'd our pants from LOLing so hard. (Figuratively speaking, of course.)

I bet the audience at home had a good laugh on our account.

When we finally got back on the right road, it was dusk and the sunset was in full bloom and the silhouettes in Ideeho are to die for when the sunset is in full bloom! All the jutting pines and the silos and the amber waves of grain! The only thing busy at dusk in Ideeho are the cows eating the amber waves of grain.

It's such a breath of fresh air, driving through Ideeho. A deep breath of fresh air.

There's a moral here. There's a definite moral here. Sometimes getting lost or delayed ain't such a bad thing. As long as you eventually get to where you're going.

Especially if where you're going is the same place all of your in-laws are going.

Amen.

And there you have it, peeps, the most exciting part of the most wonderful time of year. Immediately upon arrival at Island Park it turned into a real snooze fest. Literally. We don't do anything here but sleep. And eat. And forget to pick up after ourselves.

Wish you were here!

Wish you were all here.

Those darn Brits. And that darn James Joyce.

I accidentally, at random, just so happened to catch an episode of The British Office yesterday. That is to say the British version of The Office.

Eeeee-Gad! It's naughty! And I mean that in a nasty sort of way.

And I thought The Benny Hill Show was dirty. When I used to sneak out of bed to watch it as a teen.

I even had to be selective when choosing photographic evidence to post, because sometimes they are even crude in their still shots. "My hub was like, EWWW, you can't post that one! Or that one! Or that one . . ."

But you know what's weird? We Americans totally plagiarized the British Office. Characters, plotlines, conflicts, everything.

Fer reals! We copied all of it!

Except the British Jim (named Tim) is a lot . . . grosser. And the British Pam is a lot more . . . seductive.

And the British Dwight is just plain creepier.

And the British Michael Scott is not even half as heelarious. (And to think, my IL's think the American Michael Scott is stupid!)

Other than that we definitely stole the whole show.

Or maybe we just borrowed it so we could clean it up a bit. Improve upon it, you know. Turn the smut down a notch and the humor up a notch.

We got humor, yes we do, we got humor how' bout you!? Shouted with a hurkie kick in Britain's face.

But fer reals, our Office is WAY funnier than their Office.

That's what she said.

(Okay, that didn't work, but at least it was squeaky clean.)

P.S. So my daughter finished Catcher in the Rye. She said it was fine, but she was hoping something hopeful would happen at the end. (Poor thing doesn't have her finger on the pulse of reality.)

She started Wuthering Heights and is having trouble getting into it so guess what? I went to the library and got the book on tape so we can listen to it all the way up to Island Park today.

(Yes, it's that Island Park time of year. WOOOHOOOOO!)

She also made me check out James Joyce's Ulysses. That's next on her reading list. HA HA ha ha he he heee heee. See what I mean about her grasp on reality? James Joyce!!! Ahhhh, that's a gooood one. She'll think Wuthering Heights is a piece of pie before this week is over. Mark. My. Words.

(Okay, I've never actually read Ulysses, but I've HEARD!)

Edumacated people.

So yesterday I passed the YW torch, along with the YW mantle, along with all the other junk that goes along with YW, to the new YW Prez.

Then I went to my last YW activity.

Then, as I was walking out the church doors, I suddenly had the most irresistible urge to so something wild and crazy, like clean my laundry room, or write a best-selling novel, or clip my boys fingernails.

Or finishing unpacking from the move.

It was a breathtaking, edge-of-your-seat sensation that I can't even describe. You had to be there. You just had to be there.

Instead I went home and watched Love in the Wild and thought about Holden Caulfield. I'm kinda in love with the kid ever since I read Catcher in the Rye. And now my daughter is reading it and she's kinda in love with the kid too.

(I would like to know if her hoity toity English teacher from Hawaii is in love with the kid also. Mariko, do tell.)

My daughter is a little bit more edumacated than I was at her age.

I mean I was more edumacated in certain areas, like in the art of disrupting Sunday school, and the art of wallpapering my bedroom with Scott Baio, and the art of sucking face. She doesn't know the first thing about any of that stuff. But she's more edumacated when it comes to things like the art of passing the AP calculus test, and the art of getting a 4.0 GPA, and the art of reading classic literature all summer. So far she's hauled through Les Miserables, Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice. And now, Catcher in the Rye. Next she's going to read Wuthering Heights.

By raise of hands, who thinks she's going to love it? Who thinks she's going to hate it?

I'm putting money on the hate it side. If she wanted to smack Edward and Bella, she's going to want to Kung Fu Panda kick Healthcliff and Catherine.

Am I right? Or am I right?

My daughter is also more edumacated than me in the art of floral design. But for such a smart girl, she's kinda . . . dumb, if you know what I mean, just sayin', not to be rude.

Sometimes smart people do things a little backwards if you ask me. For instance, last Saturday my daughter did four weddings and a funeral. (I know, right. Her life is like a movie.) And for one of the weddings she makes these centerpieces out of crystal skull heads. And as if that isn't weird enough, she gives the skull heads a mohawk. Fer reals! Out of ROSES!

A roses mohawk!

Fer reals!

Wouldn't a mohawk skullhead be more fitting for the funeral!?

That's edumacated people for ya! Full of irony, every last one of 'em.

The Catchers

Do you ever get the feeling that people are watching you? Watching and waiting? For you to step out of line? So they can alert the proper authorities? And talk behind your back?

Do you ever wonder if they derive secret pleasure from your pain? Secret happiness from your sadness? Secret success from your failures?

Me neither, just wondering if you ever did.

So you wanna know the first thing you do when you get released as YW Prez, besides take a long hot bath and cry your eyes out? You throw yourself across your bed and read The Catcher in the Rye, because that Holden Caulfield can really pinch a nerve when you're feeling edgy.

And because you're ashamed you've never read it before, being that you spent 16 years of your life pretending to be a literature major slash literature teacher.

And because your daughter checked it out from the library so she could read it.

If there is one thing we moms CANNOT tolerate, it's letting our daughters read Catcher in the Rye before us!

(Too late for you, mom. Sorry. I waited as long as socially acceptably possible.)

Speaking of my mom, and The Catcher in the Rye, yesterday I went to pick her up from the opthalmologist and I pulled out Holden to read while I waited for her eyes to dilate.

"What ya reading?" She askeed. So I showed her. "Oh, that's the book that inspires all the criminals," she told me. And then the doctor called her in.

That really started messing with my head. I mean, I'd always heard it was a controversial book and all, but I thought it was because Holden was a cusser, not a criminal. I was just so worried about him for the rest of the book. He's such a hard-core sweetie pie, and you never know what he's going to do next. I kept crossing my fingers that he wasn't going to rob a bank or kill his sister or something. He loved her so darn much that would have really busted my heavy heart in two.

And then I started fretting about suicide. I just didn't think I could handle it if he knocked himself off like Sylvia Plath did in The Bell Jar. I really got attached to the kid, you know.

Not to be a spoiler, but I am SOOO happy to report that Holden doesn't kill himself OR his sister. He does lose his marbles, but who can blame him in this mad, mad world.

I've decided I'm going to write the sequel. First I'll have Jane break Holden out of the psych ward. Then they'll get married and move to my in-laws magic cabin for some R&R. Then Holden will get his dream job as a catcher in the rye, which is to say he will get paid to stand at the edge of a cliff in a rye field and catch all the children that teeter too close to the edge.

Too bad there were no catchers around when Holden was teetering.

Then Holden and Jane, and all the children they save, will live happily ever after.

The end.