My Mom and Her Tractor

I was laughing way too hard when I took this. It's a bit blurry because she was mowing really fast, like 20 mph. But then I felt bad for laughing, so I went out and picked up sticks that were in the way.

Home [from] Collage

I got home to my mom's house in Maryland last night. I feel like I have been here a week already, we did so much today! Put the bike together, visited with friends, visited with other friends, said hi to approx. 7 horses and ponies and the same amount of cats and dogs, swam, went to a bike shop, rode the bike, hung out with mom, watched Sarabi's flatwork, etc. Oh and had several conversations about where I am going in life. Thus even though it's been a good 7 years since I've come home from college, something about this trip is making me feel like I am a slightly aimless 22 year-old again. Anyhow here's a sampler of the day...

Here is Home, view from the bottom of the driveway.

Here is My Main Competition this weekend: Sarabi. Or in this case, Slobberabi. Again, I say to my mom that the choice is OBVIOUS!

No, they aren't twins! They actually aren't even related, although both are Thoroughbreds. On the left we have my perfect angel Sijui, who my mom got for me when I was 13 and she was 8. She is Sarabi's mom. On the right we have my mom's incorrigible monster Fox. Actually he is not a monster, I kind of like him, he and I spent 3 months together in Charlottesville before I moved to San Francisco and now he is my mom's and she lets him get away with murder because she thinks it's "cute".

Speaking of cute: Munchie goes for the good stuff.

My Blue checking out the scenery from the porch.

Munchie munching on more appropriate pony food: grass!

Also for those of you who are curious, my mom is still leaving notes all over the place especially in the laundry room.

One of the only reasons why I hate Maryland: developments are growing like weeds. The potentially funny thing about this site, which is about a mile from my mom's house, is that much of the 69 acres which was zoned as agriculture but somehow got to be sold for housing because of a state law that allows parcels of land exceeding 50 acres to be subdivided, anyway a lot of the land is very swampy and therefore has drainage issues, so there is debate as to how many cookiecutter plots of 4-car garage ugliness they will actually be able to put there.

1983 and 1985

We have my dear aunt to thank for these...


Here are all the cousins, with my grandparents, in the garden of what is now my mom's house. My mom dressed me and my brother in coordinating stripes for the occasion, and cut our hair to match too. I am the second kid from the left in the first row, pouting because my shirt doesn't have a unicorn I guess? But the real gem here is my cousin John, sitting next to me with the awesome glasses.


I am still an excellent speller and counter, as I was then. (Sorry Uncle Tony for leaving you out of this list?). Dixie lived to the grand old age of 41, she actually outlived Flee who was her daughter, the product of an afternoon escape to the little stallion pony down the road in the early 1970's. Naughty Dixie! Both ponies are buried in the pasture. The fields are now filled with a new bunch of happy horses and ponies, the littlest of whom, Munchie, is teaching the next generation how to ride and how to deal with bucks and kicks and stolen carrots.

Still No Shoes

I still hate everything, including and especially UPS at the moment. But, life must go on, so after biting the heads off of:

-Road Runner Sports, for being the middleman

-My sister, for being unsympathetic and square and curt and mean and for generally existing

-Road Runner Sports again, for not having several models of shoes in my size

-My Neighbors, for having a big loud truck and driving it in and out of the parking lot a kabillion times and thus making me leap up from work a kabillion times to see if UPS was really here which they really weren't

-Greg, for being in the wrong place at the wrong time (i.e. in my presence whilst I was biting off everyone's heads)

anyhow after all this I just sucked it up and paid full price plus expedited shipping on the Brooks website so that maybe I can run in sneakers that fit by the time Silverman rolls around again. (You are wondering: hasn't Court been bitching about shoes that are finally getting delivered so what's up with ordering more? Well. I was bitching because last week's yesterday's today's tomorrow's sneakers were meant to be the bellwether pair, satisfaction of which would impact my purchase of a necessary 3 add'l pairs, which I'll ideally have in hand prior to leaving town for 10 days next Thursday so I can put a lid on the replace-your-freakin'-SHOES-already signals my legs have been giving me. But I can't wait any longer so I am ordering sans bellwether, which hopefully doesn't totally backfire in the form of expensive unreturnable rubber merchandise).

Now I am going to get back to picking brackets based on who is cute and what colleges were attended by people I do/don't like, beating Greg at scrabble, waiting for my mom to call so I can complain about my insensitive little sis, and getting ready to go to the gym where I will be sure to glare at unsupervised posses of highschoolers wearing too much perfume/cologne because they are flirting with each other all over the strength-training equipment.

Even though I am freezing I am ordering a Milkshake!

Today I rode outside! Starting from the Trader Joe's in Carson City, which is about 25 miles from our place in Incline Village and about 1,500' lower in elevation, heading South along Jack's Valley Road through Genoa (Nevada's first settlement, established in 1851 - it's actually pretty cute!), down to Fredericksburg Road, Emigrant Trail, and turning around just past Woodford.

My plan to find the 7 (or 5) Peaks of Incline this week was thwarted by a couple days of snow and wintry temps and I wound up riding inside for most of my workouts. But my limit on the trainer is not high now that Spring feels so imminent - I already did one hard trainer workout this week, and the trainer just didn't feel like the right choice for getting a quality long ride done today. It felt depressing. By comparison, a 30 minute drive to relentless 20 mph winds and 40 degree temperatures was downright inspiring!

I have done this ride once before, and new I could expect DRY (yay high desert that gets not-much snow!), lightly trafficked roads, lots of ponies and cows to say hi to along the way, and lots of gorgeous views...

View near the beginning of the ride, at the top of Jack's Valley

View near my turn-around at Crystal Springs, if I'd continued on I'd have reached the famous Luther Pass

I only took a few pictures because the entire way back was so windy that my eyeballs were knocked out of focus. That's my theory anyway. I really could not see well at all, it was slightly alarming. Plus regaining momentum into a retarded headwind after a valley-vista photo-op... not worth it. (I thought of you Marit!). Oh and this is still my camera phone, since I didn't consult the expert before purchasing my Fuji Finepix, I doomed myself to true snail-mail!

Also I did not see a single other cyclist, not even Greg. We did separate rides. After the Colfax debacle which was all his fault of course and was preceded by the Auburn NOT-group ride which was also his fault, I have sworn never to ride with him again and I am sticking to my guns. So there. Hmf. I am also keeping the memory of my dear grandmother alive by ensuring that no matter what happens, I always make sure to place the blame.

But I did let him come with me to In-n-Out for burgers, fries, and Milkshakes!! Woohoo!

and right now i don't feel so good

#500!

This is the 500th post I have written since I started this blog in May of 2006... Since today can be summarized in just a few words (overslept, it's snowing, s'posed to snow more, kitty says hi), today's post will instead be a little Courtenay's Blog Recap for those of you who weren't here from the beginning (which is probably everyone except my mom... took me a while to start posting daily with gory details all about my fascinating life!)

-I got engaged. (warning: from a gossip standpoint, it's all downhill from here...)

-I got famous.

-I stopped being engaged.

-I started documenting conversations with Mom. (see more here)

-I made a threat - little did I know it would actually happen!!

-I rode the crap out of my bike.

-I started teasing Huntress. Still haven't stopped... sorry Lisa you know I love you!

-I raced.

-Shaz and I picked the wroooong place to stop.

-ImetGregweemailedhemovedin!! (it happened so fast I didn't even get a chance to blog about it!)

-I got to hang out with the coolest massage therapist ever.

-I teased some more.

-I met Katie!

-I proved that girls love goggles.

-We moved.

-I won a triathlon!?!?

-I made tons of cool new friends (see links to the left I mean right!)


and the rest is pretty recent history...

I Heart LL Bean

So recently I found a little going-away cartoon that my little sister Sarah (the one I call Scare) drew for me and my brother Than 5 years ago. It is too priceless not to share, even if my family-member readers are the only ones who get it.


On this side of the note, Scare is standing next to our mom Sal and they are both waving 'bye to me and Than who are leaving after a week-ish at home in the summer. Scare is thinking "save me!", Sal is saying "Now Sweetie, blah blah blah... HAVE FUN KIDS!" while simultaneously thinking "Christ on a Bicycle I have SO much to do!". She is also wearing a t-shirt that says I Heart L.L. Bean (hahahahahaha!) and standing with hand on hip and feet splayed as usual. This is perhaps the most perfect compilation of the best Sal-isms in existence. Good job Scare! Also the likenesses are pretty good, Scare's hair tends to be all over the place and straw-like. In a cute way of course.


The back is less interesting to me. I don't like my hair and I look fat. (joke). Than and I (I'm the one in the skirt) are walking, into the airport one would assume, and I am wondering aloud whether there is a radio on the plane. I am not sure why I am wondering this. Than is shooting me down, as usual, whilst swaggering, as usual, with shaggy hair, as usual. Again: good job Scare! Speaking of whom, you can see her and Sal as stick figs in the background.

This was a typical situation for her growing up... she is 9 years younger than I am, and 7.5 years younger than Than, so we were several steps ahead of her on the independence road and she was usually at home/in the car with Sal while Than and I were going places or getting dropped off at school.

Relatedly, this is the year that I turn 30 and Scare turns 21! So, Sal is taking us to Hawaii to visit Than in August or September - woohoo, family vacation! I'll bring some black paper and fancy jelly pens so Scare can document her amusements and disdainments, which I am sure will abound. She has taken to calling me a "creep"...

Sal's Own Post

As I mentioned yesterday, my mom is usually worthy of a whole post all to herself. Although this time she sort of has to share with my little sister, who informed me:

ALSO, sal wrote me an email that ended with "love from yo' mama"

WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE WORLD?

Then we laughed about the time 5 years ago when we tried to teach Sal and our aunt Betsy some parlance of our times... for weeks, they peppered their speech with "peace" and "word" cutely but ineffectively.


Actually I am now recalling that Sal used the word "dis" in our conversation yesterday. "I don't mean to dis him, but blah blah blah". Insert reference to old dogs and new tricks here ;) (my mom is actually pretty smart)

False Alarm

I am on Facebook, so is my sister. Last night I was informed that another family member had joined...

"Sally Rohrbach has added you a friend on Facebook!" says my email. Sally Rohrbach is my mom, the one who freaks out when my brother adjusts a desktop setting on her computer and the one who checked out ebay for the first time this Christmas and the one who calls herself a technotard. So I accept the friendship and then write something on her wall and tell my whole team how cool and clever (and slightly alarming) my mom is. And I told Huntress too, she totally wants to be facebook friends with Sal!

Wow, go Sal!

Then today I get two emails from her.

Subject line #1: yikes!!!!!
Highlights from email #1:

"This facebook thing may be the straw that breaks my sanity's back. Wow. I thought that putting my info on the page presented to me by Hope would allow me to see her page - she wrote asking that I look at it... I don't know what facebook is and don't really care. I wish I could unsubscribe and remove my name, but I'm afraid to do anything. Any ideas? And what's scrabulous."

Followed quickly by:

Subject line #2: ???
Email #2:

"What does a "message on my wall" mean?"

Poor Sal!

We have a phone date to sort it out tomorrow.

Recent Quotables

If you can name each series and if you use their 'casual' names...

"I am NOT a Trekkie! I mean, I haven't even seen any of the original Star Trek series, although I saw all of the movies of course, I've seen only 80% of TNG [Star Trek: The Next Generation, for all of us definite non-trekkies], I didn't like Deep Space Nine, and I haven't watched any of Enterprise. Voyager is the only series I have seen in its entirety. I'm not a Trekkie!"

Inventing new appliances?

"I need some more eggnog. Who stole my cup? Did someone put it in the dish-damn-washer?!"

Regarding mothers who drone on and on and on:

"Does she have a Pause button? Oh right. No. Just Play and Fast Forward."

Courtesy of: Greg, my mom, and my cousin John

A Few Lessons

Family time is always learning-experience time. In visits past, I have learned lots about my mom's fridge, my sister's maelstrom bedroom and its bizarre item-devouring abilities (speaking of which I lost Greg's presents in there for 3 days and my mom finally found them this morning), tractors, etc. The one overriding theme of all these visits is that Mom is the butt of all jokes. - Mom Remaly, Mom Court, Mom Rohrbach (that's my mom), mom mom mom is the one to get teased.

Well.

This time, I learned that big sister is also allowed to be the butt of almost all jokes, even when my mom is in the room.

When did this come about?! What happened?! I am not even THIRTY yet!!! When did I get booted to the mom group?!?!

Incident I

Right now, my brother and sister and cousin and mom and mom's friend are all still laughing at my "watch this"'s. I have developed this habit of saying "watch this" to Greg and subsequently, I don't know, taking out the trash or something. Or turning off the TV. Or doing something inherently unworthy of watching. So Christmas morning, one of my presents was a really cool Craft undershirt, and I was so excited that a "watch THIS!" slipped out and I started to put the shirt on over top of my t-shirt. I had a little trouble because I had forgotten to unzip the zipper, so I finally poke my head out and see 6 pairs of eyes all staring at me silently. "Why's everyone looking at me?!" I said. Apparently they were following instructions, don't ask me where the obedience suddenly came from.

Incident II

And then yesterday, we were at a party and I finally met my good friend Oona's boyfriend, Ali. First of all, it took me an hour to realize he was the famous Ali because when we were introduced I was like "Nice to meet you Ollie!" Thank god I stopped myself from being like "so Oona, are you and Ali still together? Gimme the scoop!" because some light in my brain finally went off. I swear, TV is making me so stupid.

Anyhow Ali works for Pixar Studios. So later in the evening my brother and I were talking to him about his job.

Me: Pixar! That's so cool! Yay "Shrek the Third"!
Ali: That's Dreamworks actually.
Me: Oh. Right. What about "Bee Movie"?
Ali: Nope. That's Dreamworks too.

I then went to get dessert and let my brother take over my botched conversation attempt. Ali's very cool though and I don't think he hates me.

Incident III

Now, we all know that I am a driver of questionable skills. See one, two, etc. Hmf.

Well anyhow, despite this, I got have gotten stuck with the driving most of the time here. My brother "can't drive" my mom's low-rent vehicles. Greg "doesn't know the way" or something, plus the couple times I did let him drive he went a catrillion miles an hour and I shrieked. And my sister... well, let's just say she has her weak points too. We are related after all.

So yesterday after 2 hours of me driving us through rainy traffic, and we got there safe and sound, I get accused of driving like a scared rabbit!! The nerve! Something to do with my lane-changing skills... Also I have a ridiculously difficult time backing up so I guess scared rabbits do that when they are driving too.

And to top it all off, after getting teased for this for like 10 minutes, they made ME the designated driver!



p.s. I am having tons of fun. You know me, I love attention ;)

Christmas Eve!

Last night might have been my favourite Christmas Eve in years! We had 20-25 people, including a couple of ridiculously cute kids who sadly are of no relation to me, although the little boy is named Nathaniel just like my brother. And for you horse-racing fans out there, his dad is trainer Scott A. Lake. Paula was here and gave us the scoop on the Hollywood writer's strike and the extent to which reality shows are really scripted. And lots of people were somehow enthralled with my tri-geek talk... Speaking of which, enough yammering, on to the photos:

Little cuteness Nathaniel

Little Nathaniel, me, and Mikey.

Me with the famous People Paula!

Little brother and big sister. Sis offering advice and instruction, or something.

Little Nathaniel's big sister Cora playing with my little brother Big Nathaniel, p.s. wouldn't you just DIE for those CURLS!!!

Scare with Little Nathaniel.

Little Nathaniel double-fisting the nuts. Cuteness lets you get away with murder...

Big Nathaniel "being nice" to Mikey.

loooooong night for Mikey!

...you do triATHalons??

I just beat Greg at wrestling, like I always do, thusly I get to sit and blog while he helps his mom set the table for brunch! Remaly family Christmas is going great so far, as is my little Charlottesville-visitation-and-reminiscing trip. Highlights of the trip thus far include:

- Riding Tango, which was so much fun! Greg came to the barn with me so that I could teach him how to groom and tack up a horse and, more importantly, so that he could document the event. Here I am in borrowed boots, borrowed tack, borrowed chaps, and a borrowed helmet (the dirty vest, the salmon pants, and the big smile are all mine though!), on an awesome borrowed horse. My inner leg muscles are still screaming in the aftermath but it was worth it. ALTHOUGH I must say, these new monster-mushroom helmets that everyone has to wear are kind of ridiculous. Way too big and ugly. If they wanted more protection why not go for face masks or something.

- I went to a party the other night, where the #2-ish ranked student in the current 2nd year UVA med. school class said to me "so, you're a triathlete... what does that mean, you do triATHalons or something?" I laughed, nicely I hope. Then she and her husband were telling me about their friend who's grand aspiration of the year is to qualify for Kona. I responded with a 5+ minute rant on the evils of the Ironman corp. and the bullshitness of their world championships for age groupers to a room full of glazed-eyed non-athletes. Despite this minor faux pas, I swear you can dress me up and take me places!

- Greg is a very good, and very entertaining, ping pong player. So is his dad!

- Yesterday Greg's dad got a puzzle for Christmas, one of those 9-square things with different pictures and you arrange the squares into one big square. To everyone's great amusement, I struggled away at it for a couple/few hours, developing, testing, and refining my theory and strategy... at 12:03 a.m. I DID it! Proof (note the Bicycling magazine on the floor, where it belongs - just for you Tracie!):


- As a follow-up to previous bloggings: a. as an EIGHT year old, Greg swam faster than I do right now. When I was eight, life was about ponies (photo at right was taken during my 8-year-old year), and the only swimming I did was during games of Marco Polo. And b. Greg's dad did help me with my stroke. It was great. I am heading home armed with some really specific drills and goals. I got better and faster even within the 45 minute instruction session. MAJOR PHEW. I am on my way to swimming at 9- or even 10-year old Greg Remaly speeds.

- This one is perhaps my favourite. I learned from Greg's mom that out of her 3 children, he was "always the sweet one." How cute! Little Greg was the sweet one!

Blind Leading the Blind

I spent the weekend in Incline with Greg (I am officially still an Oakland resident, until next week anyway), getting a little taste of cool things to come... awesome pool, great running trails, lake views, bear signs (how exciting!), and cool-to-cold temps.

Regarding that last item: good thing we have a fireplace!

However, I have spent a lifetime avoiding fire-building duty at my mom's. No tactic is too silly or too pathetic for me - claiming a mortal fear of fire (can't tend the fire from 10 feet away), displaying blatant stupidity (oh you mean if I pile up ten logs at a time and try to use one match to light a log it won't work [innocent face]?), using calm reasoning (well, considering that I just vacuumed and did the dishes and did a lot of cleaning, it would be silly for me to get all ashy and dirty at the fire place)(hahaha vacuuming and dishes?), and flat out whining (but PLEASE why can't someone ELSE do it I HATE fires they are GROSS!).

But I succeeded.

Fires are officially the realm of my brother/mom/sometimes sister/any male guest who happens to be at our house.

Yet somehow, I was the one teaching Greg to build fires this weekend. Making little newspaper torches, checking the flue, artfully arranging kindling, getting on my hands and knees to coax and blow the little fire into roaring, and then sitting back and gazing at my handiwork. I made a Fire!!

Don't tell my mom though, I don't want fire duty at Christmas....

ME ME ME again

When I was 18, I asked my mom permission to get a tattoo for my 19th birthday. Um. She totally lost it. Worse than I had ever seen her flip out in my whole life, which is saying a lot because as I am sure you can imagine, I was not quite an "angelic" child. So I just waited until I was 22 and was supporting myself, and I got one of my drawings inked onto my shoulder. When she saw it she flipped out again.

By the time of the 4th one her reaction calmed down to just silent disapproving disgust. I'm not sure which is worse actually, the freakout or the glare.

Recently, my brother and my sister both told me they were thinking of getting tattooed and what did I think about their thoughts? Good idea or what?

I said I thought I'd get in big trouble all over again... But if it's something that you would want for life, that you'd be O.K. with loving sometimes and hating other times, go for it.

At that point my sister confessed that she was thinking of getting "something in Elvish" (this was when she was in New Zealand "working on organic farms" - both quotation mark items cracked me up). But don't worry, she is still ink free.

(photo credit: Stephen Weiss)

Drinkin' and Dialin'

This incident occurred last week, and I would have blogged about it earlier but it has taken several days of intense research for me to even figure out what was going on.

It was one of my mom's famous Friday Nights (see Category #1).

The partyers called me at 12:36 a.m., twice, but I didn't answer either time and actually didn't get the messages until the clear light of Saturday.

The first message was unintelligible.

Then there was the second... "Courtenay! Hey! I'm glad we got you!-pause- Oh. I guess this is just your message. O.k., long story short, blah blah blah..." And it went on for a while. I finally deduced (and confirmed) that it was friend Adam calling to tell me that Sarah (my sister) and Sam (Adam's wife) were teasing him for channeling In Living Color and they were calling him Shaniqua all evening and my mom, the pop-culture moron (sorry Sal but it's so true), was reliably spectacularly clueless.

I guess about an hour or two into the Shaniqua shenanigans, my mom (who mind you had been LAUGHING and pretending to get the jokes) was finally like "Who is this Shanik person you guys keep talking about? Shanik was this, Shanik was that, but who's Shanik?"

This prompted gales of laughter and several phone calls to sober sleeping me.

Amusing side note: when I went back and listened to the message an additional 5 times to piece Adam's version of the story together, I noticed that my only other saved message is one from my brother, which he left at some ungodly hour last January, and which I can't bring myself to delete.

"Courtenay! I'm pressing Five! Because I am trying to Page You! But. I guess I should just leave a message. I'm in LA and in case you hadn't noticed I'm a little bit wasted. O.K. love ya bye!"


So bring on the drink-and-dials, they are hilarious!

Speaking of The Little Brat

Talking to my mom about the new kitty led to me talking to my sister about my mom, and then about other things.

The little brat is doing well. Her life is still a boyless dismality, she says, and the new kitty is very cute, and no Sal is NOT going to call it Nueve, definitely NOT.

And, she even got herself a real live summer job in D.C.!


Me: how's work?

Scare: um
well
I'm not dead
which is a plus

Me: whoa
why would you be dead?

Scare: I work in Homeland Security
why wouldn't I be dead?
also there is the boredom factor.


I suggested she play minesweeper and plan cute outfits to wear this weekend while going into Annapolis by herself (since she doesn't know anyone) to buy the new Harry Potter, and additionally she could take up yoga because that's where she could meet some nice sensitive dudes. I was met with several "ugh"s and a fairly prompt peace-out.

Smartypants-es (is that the plural?)

I am en route to Nature Valley.
For some reason my laptop is out of batteries.
For some further reason my laptop charger is on the floor by the bed 1000 miles away from here.

Grr.

So smartypants #1, that's me.

For #2 we turn to my lovely little sister Scare.

Me: So, what's on the agenda for the week? You going to look for a summer job?
Scare: Goal for the week is to get a tan. Anni gave me a white dress and I need a tan to wear it.
Me: Oh.

But here is the good one:

Me: Do you have a boyfriend yet?
Scare: There are boys in Maryland?! Ha. No, my life is a boyless dismality.

(emphasis added)

How awesome is that. A boyless dismality. My newest favouritest funny thing said by another person, after unicorns and other nickname things.

O.K. that's it for now. I would make fun of Lisa and her 5 checked bags (no joke - I documented it with my camera but the photo download will have to wait for the laptop to get charged) and her other team-travel-related amusements and freakouts but (a) she is kindly letting me use her laptop for this post and (b) me teasing her on my blog means that I am suddenly the one at whom all the bold capslock imperative statements are directed in team pre-race communiques (COURTENAY IF YOU WANT YOUR OWN SPECIAL BOTTLES AT THE START THEN BLAH BLAH BLAH ETC. sort of thing) So I have decided I should minimize Lisa Teasing here. Or at least try...

Update on Mom's Internet

(via chat with little sister Scare)
(who is apparently speaking to me again after last week's "incident")

Sarah: hey man
we have high SPEED!
except I'm not using it

me: WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Sarah: because you have to sit outside, in the car
and I am "CLEANING MY ROOM"
so hanging in the car isn't really an opsh

me: is it rigged through philipa and doug's place? (the neighbors)

Sarah: yeah

This exchange was on Monday. I chatted with her again yesterday, during which time she was again not using the New High Speed because it was 95 degrees outside and thus too hot to sit in the car with the laptop.

Forgot to ask the status of this "ROOM CLEANING" project but I have a sneaking suspicion that the status is a messy status quo.

In Sum...

It was a pretty successful family reunion week I have decided.

My mom managed to corner all 3 of her kids for a photo, and she even got one where no one had bunny-ears or a finger up their nose.

That's my cousin Elizabeth, then Me, Than, and Sarah who was still not speaking to me (see below).

My brother Than and my uncle Tony got out on the tennis court every day.

Me: How was the Tennis?
Than: We didn't play tennis.
Me: Huh? How come you are all sweaty and you are holding a racquet and how come I swear I just saw you guys on the tennis court?
Than: We didn't play tennis. We played Tony Wins.

The funny/embarrassing thing is we had pretty much this exact conversation every day... but back to the weekly tally.

I won two games of Scrabble and even got rid of all my letters one time ("requiem"! on a triple word score! how sick was that!).

I got out on my bike every day. I worked on my tan. I played with enough ponies, puppies, and kitties to last me until the next east-coast visit I hope.

We ate lots of watermelon.

Gin and tonics are delicious in the summertime.

I witnessed lengthy conversations about tractors, the county agricultural preserve (which successfully fended off a Target that was supposed to get built at Wayson's Corner - go Ag Preserve!), whose fence got knocked down by who else's tree, the live wire that PG&E left out at Bowie race track, the beating that the first crop of strawberries sustained in Monday's rainstorm, the diversity of color, use of natural light, and circuitous procession through Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Church, and the vast difference in 1970 vs. 1990-and-beyond childbirth practices with regards to presence of father, presence of doctor, inclusion of father in pre-birth instruction, verticality or horizontality of c-section cuts... Basically a whole lot of stuff about which I (shock and surprise!!) had little or nothing to contribute. So I sat all ears, refreshingly silent, and sometimes laughing.

For example of tractors and laughing: my mom was talking about Charles Tasker, the somewhat sort of reliable guy from down the road who comes to help her do stuff sometimes. Now, earlier I had heard her complain about the fact that he a. let out a possum who has been stealing the cat food all spring and she finally trapped it and was going to take down the road to dump off elsewhere but Charles didn't want the elsewhere to be his driveway so he turned over the trash can right there and the thing scampered back to the cat food and b. he's petrified of snakes. But give her a glass of wine or two and suddenly...

"Charles Tasker is a genius! He is an absolute ballerina with the tractor!"

OMG. My brother and I got some teasing mileage out of that one for sure.

Oh, and I succeeded in maintaining my bratty first-born child status by making my sister cry, driving my mom to call me a bitch, generally being busy or napping when I sensed such projects as furniture rearrangement, leaf raking, fence repair... And I broke a glass bowl too.

Sorry Ma.

But I did try to be good, I really did - I did dishes, asked my mom what was in the fridge before opening it and standing there for 5 seconds or more, helped grocery shop, graciously gave up my room for my cousin and even made the bed, filled the car with gas, and be'd nice when possible. So apparently I am invited back home for the holidays this year. Phew.