Does pouring caffeine directly into your eyeballs help? So tired the eyeballs ache.   Need. Sleep. Went to the financial planner guy today and was so tired/stoned I basically told the guy if he stole our money I’d hunt him down and stab him. I am sure he’s reconsidering taking us as clients.   In other news, got word today that MBH’s gran (92 y.o.) is in the hospital with a gallbladder attack.  What the hell’s with gallbladders lately? It’s like they are the new monster of the week, everyone is getting attacked by one.

When I am ruler of the world, there will be a channel on tv that is aimed at insomniacs, because there is just crap on at 3 am.  My channel will run episodes of Doctor Who, Firefly, Buffy and other such fine quality program from midnight - 6am and infomercials the other 18 hours of the day.  People who are awake at 3 am NEED quality programming a lot more than stupid normal sleeping people do.  Why do none of the marketing morons realize this?

MBH has this OCD thing where he can’t touch anything vaguely oily (including plastic).  He eats french fries with a fork.  Whenever I go away and he’s responsible for giving our dogs their treats and glucosamine chews, he feeds them to the dogs with a fork.  Now Diva, our dog who is oh-so-aptly named, refuses to eat her chews unless they are given to her on a fork.  Motherfucker BROKE our dog.

So my BF and her husband came to visit this week and she’s all pissed at me because I took the husband’s side in an argument.  And usually I don’t do that, because, let’s face it, husbands are stupid, but let’s face it, so are wives.  For example, I do not understand certain arguments my friends have with their husbands.  “ARRGH I am so pissed!   So I ask him to help me out with the laundry and I have to ask him, like, FIVE TIMES and finally, he folds the stupid laundry and he FOLDS THE TOWELS WRONG! Can you believe it ??!!”  No, I really can’t.  Why the fuck are you mad because he folds the towels wrong.  How do you even fold a towel wrong?   What constitutes a wrongly folded towel? Does it cease to function as a towel if it’s folded into thirds instead of halves or what-the-fuck-ever?  Who cares?  Are they folded? Are they in the closet?  Then shut up and say thank you. Possibly not in that order.  Women, accept:  If you put a task in someone else’s hands, let it the fuck go.  If it is done, even if it is not done how you would have done it, shut up and say thank you.   And what’s with the whole asking five times thing?  Are you asking them while they are watching tv?  Playing video games?    Have you not learned? You hide the remote, THEN ask them to fold the laundry.   And men, pull your head out of your ass and listen the first time so that your wives aren’t ready to stab you before you even begin to fold the towels.   Because once they reach that point, there’s just no way you are ever going to fold those towels correctly. (Towels are a metaphor, people, they cover a wide range of topics)

Today I had lunch with a friend who squoze (real word) out a baby about 3 months ago?  First infant I have ever held.  I managed not to break it.  Neither one of us vomited on the other.  I would so rock at full time mothering.   At first I thought the kid was severely deformed and I was trying to be all diplomatic like “Wow, your kid has extra arm segments, that’ll probably come in handy when he’s a teenager and masturbating!” but then it turns out he didn’t actually have extra arm segments; his arms are just so fat that they look segmented.  Babies come with fat pouches apparently, I guess so they can be self-feeding for a while if their parents become so sleep-deprived that they forget they have a baby.  Anyway. I’ve now held a baby. I can cross that off the list and never, ever do it again.

So recently I have realized I have a crap memory.  I am constantly talking to people and they’ll say something like, “Hey remember when you and I did (insert gigantic thing here that really anyone in their right mind would remember doing) and I am all like, “uh..no?”  So I decided I really, really need to start writing shit down so at the very least I can fake it and do a quick scroll and read oh my yes, I entirely remember when on July 17th 2012 we attended that awesome concert where people caught on fire and we laughed hysterically while they rolled around screaming for help. And water.  How could I ever forget THAT?!  Having it online and accessible by surreptitious phone linkage, even better. Plus this blog is so damn dead, no one reads it, including me. So it’s like having a private online diary.  Only exposed to the world.   P.S In reading back through my last entry, dated in 2011, I find it amusing because ever since I saw Book of Mormon, I totally want to be mormonized. If only so I can go ring people’s doorbells and sing “Hello!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKkLV1zE8M0

Traveling can suck.  Seeing things is great, hiking is great, coming face to face with buffalo, endless sights to see…all great.  But traveling, the actual physical act of going from location to location is tiring, mind-deadening, spine-jarring and a complete pain in the ass (literally).  Now I know that those of you reading this are probably rolling your eyes.  You have no doubt just worked a 40-60 hour week at some mind-numbing, soul-sucking job and you are a bit flabbergasted that I have the gall to bitch and moan about getting to travel around the country and see some of the most amazing sights the land has to offer.  “Shut up”, you are probably thinking, “you should try my week!”.  Meh.  Whatever, the point still is:  Traveling can suck.  We’ve been at it for two solid weeks now, and I am beginning to be a bit tired.  The endless schlepping of bags and bits, arranging, re-arranging the car as we add to the stash of goodies we’ve collected, the endless variety of hotel beds, though very comfortable, never quite as good as your own, the endlessly changing din of the hotel air conditioners and individual noises, which if you are fortunate enough to stay for two, nights, you become sufficiently accustomed to sleep through without waking on the second night, only to have to adjust yourself to a whole new cacophony on the next night …We just finished day two at Yellowstone, we’ve seen lots of gorgeous scenery, and I should probably upload photos to please my mother but I am tired.  So I’m not going to do that.  I am just going to lie here in bed, and whine a little.

Apparently proving I slept through geography class, I had a complete misconception about what I could expect to see in Utah.  I had imagined dusty plains and flat lands.   Pretty much everything we’ve driven through so far has been mountainous, hilly, rocky, sometimes dusty yes, some green and snow capped,  but huge towering mountains nonetheless. Bryce Canyon, even though I was shivering so badly I could hardly see, is definitely one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.  We decided to take scenic route 12 out to Salt Lake City, a winding road that is regularly in the lists of top scenic drives in the US.  It was an amazingly beautiful drive with cliffs of every color, from dingy grey to deep reddish orange.

We spent today wandering around downtown Salt Lake City.  Now I have to give credit where credit is due: the cultists that run this town put their glassy eyed slave labor to good use, creating around their seat of power some of the most spectacular garden I have ever seen.  I don’t know what the mormon’s tithing system is, but they must rake it in, because their flower budget has to run in the thousands.  It was beautiful though and smelled heavenly.  They had jasmine and tulips and hosts of flowers I could not even begin to name, but if you ever have a hankering to visit Utah, time your visit to arrive in Salt Lake in mid-May.  You will not be disappointed.  It is a shame however that the entire state is dominated by the religious fringe — I really feel like we are looking at what Clearwater will be in a few years if the Scientology freaks get their way.

Bryce Canyon:

Lupe gone Loopy.  She is not pleased.

Cult headquarters:

(I like this shot.   Loopy’s all like “This temple is mine bitches! Worship me!”

So I feel bad for MBH.  Ever since I have known him, he has talked about going to Bryce Canyon and going hiking. Today was supposed to be the day. Except that Mother Nature decided now would be a good time to bring in a nice cold front and dump a load of snow down on Bryce.  No hiking for us.  For those who know, cold weather is not my friend.  Elevation is also not my friend.  Combine freezing temps at 10,000 feet and you have a recipe for my own private hell.  After doing the drive tour of Bryce, which consisted of driving to a scenic point, jumping out, oohing and ahhing, and scurrying back to the car, we have decided that we are for sure coming back and doing it properly.  Once I convince MBH that I need me that house in Arizona, we can take a few excursions each summer.   We decided to wait til better times (warmer) to explore Bryce and changed plans and headed for Salt Lake City.  There is a huge bookstore there we are interested in checking out, plus we plan to knock on random mormons’ doors and ask them if they’d like to hear the word of reason and convert to atheism.   Big day ahead tomorrow.  Til then, here are a whole slew of photos to catch you up on our sights, more to come tomorrow.

The first kitch stop, Texas. Where we picked up our mascot, Lupi too.

Santa Fe, Donkey statue.  Don’t ask me.

So supposedly, in Santa Fe, back in the day, some nuns decided they were tired of using a ladder to clamber into the choir loft.  So they prayed to Jeezus and after nine days a miraculous carpenter arrived who cobbled together a winding staircase to the top (the lighter portion of the wood). It was a miracle, as he apparently used no nails, and it’s a marvel of engineering.  The nuns, who were apparently less impressed by the miracle of its craftsmanship than they were concerned for their own necks, had the darker rails added at a later date.

And on to Arizona….

“Take it easy…take it easy…don’t let the sound of your own wheels make you craaaaaazy.”  So true…so true.

We arrive in Sedona, Arizona.  It’s pretty.

Below are some views:

I’ll upload some Bryce photos later today or tomorrow.

Well we did not get to do the helicopter excursion today.  The winds and weather made it untenable to fly in the canyon, so they called us this morning and canceled.  Le bummer.  So MBH decided we should drive an hour and a half to Bearizona, a drive through zoo, where you remain in your car and drive through the open animal pens.  They advise you to keep your windows rolled up, which of course, only the fainthearted and the French would do.  Bearizona was actually pretty cool for a number of reasons.  Number one, I had no idea wolves were that big.  When they can actually just walk up and look in your car window, yeah…wolves are big. And these wolves are the equivalent of teenagers.  Not even fully growed up yet.  Geesh.  There were also assorted sheep (yawn) and white bison and of course, bears, lots of bears.  Bears napping (which seems to be a preferred bear activity), bears getting romantic with each other, bears climbing trees, bears rolling around and bears just basically sitting in a stupor. And one poor unfortunate bear who seemed distressed with his life and situation and just rocked back and forth, desperately needing the bear form of prozac.  Kind of sad, and a reminder that no matter how nice the habitat, a cage is still a cage.

We then went to the nearby town of Williams and got thai food, and then went to a diner that had about forty kinds of pies.  We got two slices and I commenced attempting to convince MBH again, that we really needed to buy a vacation home in Arizona.  Except for the crazy political morons and their batshit stupid governor, it’s quite a nice place. He continues to play hard to get.

After lunch, and once again, based on iphone and Yelp, he decided we absolutely had to go to the nearby deer farm, which in addition to deer has camels, donkeys, miniature horses, wallabies, reindeer and other assorted four legged creatues.  Now the concept of farming deer is one that baffles me.  Do they sell the deer for hunters stew?  What precisely are they farming them for?  Do the unwitting and hapless people who pay 12 bucks for a bucket of feed for the deer know that they are actually a cog in a machine that is designed to fatten the deers up for slaughter?  Are all the sweet little Bambis destined for some backwoods yokel’s dinner?  I purchased a bucket of feed and walked out to the pasture where I was confronted by hordes, dozens, possibly hundreds, of deer.  “How cute, ” I naively thought and then reality slapped me in the face as I experienced the unpleasantness of being stampeded, accosted, bit and trampled by crazed deer all out to yank-with extreme force-the bucket from my hand and devour anything that might possibly contain a bit of grain (including my shirt and jacket) while smearing mud and deer snot on every exposed inch of skin. Standing there, attempting to keep my footing in the piles of dirt and deer crap,  I decided I really don’t care what the ultimate fate of these little bastards might be.  I completely understand why people shoot them now.  Bambi eyes my ass; voracious ill-mannered locusts is what they are.  MBH, who had apparently read about the realities of sending an unwitting human into the midst of the crazed Bambi horde had graciously insisted that I be the one to feed them and he’d take the photos.  Then he stood by and laughed while I ran for my life from the evil-hooved onslaught.  I am currently contemplating what a sufficient payback might be.

After we left the hordes of demons behind us, we headed back towards Sedona and spent a couple of hours in a small mountain side town nearby, called Jerome.  Largely a collective of artist types, it boasts a ghost town, which basically seems to mean that every piece of metal trash that was ever in any nearby town has been assembled there, along with some dilapidated buildings, some goats and a donkey who has been trained to ring a bell to request food.  My foolish self, not yet having learned from recent experience, was sufficiently suckered by the cuteness of the long eared beggar, to acquire a bag of feed for him and fed it to him on demand.  Now I want a donkey, possibly to be named Fred.

We have scads and loads of photos yet to be uploaded, and the internet at this hotel is so bad it makes it a chore and a half, so tomorrow, when we land at a hotel that has hopefully better internet, I’ll post a gross of photos.  Won’t have much to report as tomorrow will be spent driving to Bryce Canyon.  Til then…