The End Is Never Quite Like The Beginning

Into the city we drove, but not without a search for the one stop on this trip that we'd been planning for more than a month in advance: lunch at the dreamy tex-mex fast food joint, Cafe Rio.  This improved love-child of Baja Fresh and Cold Stone Creamery is filled with containers of bright colored treats behind glass and smiling employees shouting urgent commands at you: "Red or Green?!", "Pinto or Black?!", "Indigestion or heartburn?!"  I think they aim to give you an involuntary twitch by the time you reach the register.  They ask.  so.  fast.

After Cafe Rio, we rolled our bodies back to the Caliber and somehow managed to putter our poor, now-vastly-overweight car back to the hotel.  After shimmying up to the desk and checking in, we holed ourselves in the room for the rest of the day, too bloated to go anywhere and too full to want dinner.  But there would always be tomorrow.

Antelope Island had been on my radar for a long time before this trip, years actually.  You see, my family (due to free, magical pass-riding with my dad's airline employer - which seems farther away with each time I hit "checkout" on Expedia) spent a number of February school-vacations skiing Alta and Snowbird in Little Cottonwood Canyon outside of Salt Lake. And there was always that darn island lurking in the distance.  And it was always February.

So this year, I was determined to make the pilgrimage.  It was outstanding, for two central reasons.  First of all, there are 500-700 american bison roaming around, stopping traffic and generally showing visitors their um, best side.

Which is huge, by the way.

Second, there is a beach, which is composed 70/30 or so of the most beautiful white sand (formed like tiny pearls around the fecal matter of brine shrimp) and heaps of molted shells left by brine flies.  If you have a choice, step on the fly shells - they're a lot softer.  The lake is between 4 and 28% salinity depending on the season and rainfall (for reference, the ocean is 3%), so apart from some algae and birds that feed on the previous two species, it's just me, you, and some veeerrry floaty water.  You can even sunbathe in the lake if you like - it's easy as pie.  Which we did.  And it was excellent, but you'll need a shower afterwards - like right now - or you'll stink like an evaporating city pool.

We hiked in the foothills of the Wasatch range, went to the Hogle Zoo, saw the Lion King 3D (I'll tell you about my Lion King life phase some other time... it is way too extensive to slide in here), and went to a Brazilian churrascaria to cap off our western vacation.  There's nothing like 9 types of meat and those little cheesy donuts to really say, "it's time to go back to oatmeal and vegetables".

And that was it.  Just an airport whirlwind and we were home.  Plus a 5.5-hour car ride, then we were really home - just where we started, only a little less pale.  I assume this is Nature's peace offering for the six months of winter she's about to hurl our way.

Thanks, but the gifts better keep coming.

Paper Or Plastic?

This morning was one of those: I was up early and already running late.  And so I found myself scrambling out the door with the bowl of oatmeal that I failed to make time to eat at home, when I figured (again) that I am totally capable of simultaneously carrying my purse, laptop bag, a pair of shoes, a coffee mug and a bowl of warm sloshing cereal meanwhile using my left butt cheek to push open that evil, tiny screen door handle and snag the front door with my free right hand (can I get an amen?).  I'm sure that this is all goes smooth as butter in my alternate life, where I have 8 arms.

Look how much fun she's having.

Look how much fun I'm having.

C is constantly harping on me for trying to carry too many things at once.  We'll get home from the grocery store, and I'll start loading up bags onto my fingers like a 2nd grade coat rack in January.  I'm still amazed that I haven't permanently lost the feeling in my right index finger, which is my preferred bag sherpa.  During each of our recent moves, it feels like I manage to pile far too high a stack of books and "important papers" (most of these are drawings from our favorite 2-5 year olds and greeting cards I've always meant to, but never actually sent) in the empty box from our blender, or ripped through far too many plastic bags by filling them with silverware and hangars.  There is a science to load bearing I'm sure, and it's high time that I take that class, because I'm fairly positive that as oatmeal/baby vomit was sliding down the sleeve of my fleece this morning, C felt no pity for me.  I suppose it's like watching someone with an addiction relapse into their vice.  You've seen them fall too many times to be disappointed by their latest failure.

And there's a crazier part.  While I'm standing with oatmeal dripping off of my cuff and that stupid screen door caught on my left shoulder, I'm kind of mad.  Well yeah, I'm definitely mad at myself, and the oatmeal, and the tiny door handle, but I'm also a little mad at C.  Part of me wanted him to come sweep along beside me, lift the oatmeal/shoes out of my paws and open that door for me.

But the reality is that if he'd have come to my rescue and eased my burden, I probably would've just remembered the 15 other things that I wanted to bring in to work today, and filled my fingers up again.  And probably I would have re-spilt my oatmeal.  And this time it would have fallen on the crotch of my pants.  It totally would.

Speaking of that - last night I spilled a scalding cup of tea on the crotch of my pants.  Do you know that when you spill boiling water on yourself, you are guaranteed to freak out and flail enough to spill it again?

Yup, yup you are.