BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

As promised, I am throwing together a few blogs about our adventures on vacation. Please make note that they won’t necessarily be in chronological order as far as the vacation itself went. They are actually in “transcribed jotted down note order,” which makes sense to me, but not really everyone else. At any rate, this is number two in the series…

You just can’t trust anyone these days… Not even family. Seriously. They will rat you out on something in a New York Minute. Which begs the question, what exactly is a New York Minute? Is it slower or faster than a regular minute? If so do they have to sell special watches and clocks in New York? If it’s faster, is that why they have the New Years celebration there, so they can get it over with quicker? Do you have “time lag” if you go to New York then return to the temporal dimension that governs everyone else?

Could make you crazy just thinking about it, ya’know?

Anywho, back to the ratting out thing.

Gratuitious "Tourist Snapshot" of walkway atop Signal Mountain

After our Snake River Adventure with Philosopher Steve (which is on my schedule to blog about) we took his advice and went up to the top of Signal Mountain. Great view, but why is it called Signal Mountain? Well… I don’t know quite how it originally got its name, but there does happen to be a rather large cell tower on top of it, and you can definitely get signal there.

However… After going up a mountain there’s very little left to do other than go back down, which eventually, we did. On the way we kept on the lookout for wildlife so that we could go “Ooh, Ahh, never seen one of those…” and then take pictures like typical tourists. In point of fact, my Brother-in-Law was on a mission to take pictures of a Bear (or three, or four, or five…) He had come to Wyoming, as he said, “Loaded for Bear”… Judging from some of the lenses he was packing, I certainly couldn’t dispute that.

And so, as we traveled down the mountain, watching out the windows, we eventually came upon some wildlife. This particular wildlife took the form of a small clutch of German tourists. They were stopped along the side of the road snapping pictures, so we pulled up slowly so as to not spook whatever it was that happened to be the subject of the picture taking. This is when we discovered they were German. By this I mean, one of them stood there nodding her head and smiling at us, while a couple of the others kept saying to us, “Ja… Ja… Das Cinnamon Bayer…”

The other few behind them were also nodding and saying, “Ja… Ja…”

It was sort of sad. Not them. I mean us. Why? Because none of us could speak German. Well… THEY could, but we couldn’t…

From lookout at end of walkway: Jackson Lake with Grand Tetons

Either way, we parked, climbed out, and milled around waiting to see if we could get a picture of “Smokey the Bear.” Unfortunately, if Cinnamon (Nutmeg, Turmeric, Ginger, or even Mary Ann) bears were in the vicinity we never got to see them. Why? Because of the horn honkers. But we’ll talk about them in a different blog. Right now we need to talk about me being ratted out.

And so… Due to the horn honkers we climbed back into the rental Jeep and started back down the mountain. We hadn’t traveled more than 200 yards when the seatbelt chime began to ding, dong, squeal, and otherwise demand we pay attention to it.

E K, who was in charge of driving (as we’ve already established, what with her control issues and all) said, “All right. Who doesn’t have their seatbelt on?”

Our Sister-in-Law replied, “It’s John.”

John, being my Brother-in-Law you understand, announces, “Neither does Murv!”

Guess which one of us got smacked by the redhead…

Okay, guess I should wrap it up for this installment… Gotta go get the stitches taken out in a bit…

More to come…

Murv

Having lived with an Evil (and I do mean EVIL) redhead for well over 25 years, I have become used to some of the nuances involved in such an endeavor. In fact, I dare say I have even become jaded… I just sort of know what to expect, how it goes, and what to do… Right up until she decides to throw me a curveball, that is. She usually does that just so I’ll screw up and she’ll have a valid excuse to do horrible and terrible things to me…

Who am I kidding? She doesn’t need an excuse…

At any rate, the thing here is that I am used to life under the heel of the redhead, therefore I keep forgetting that others don’t quite know what to expect, or how to fully interpret the subtleties of E K.

This includes the o-spring. Case in point…

During our recent vacation, as we cruised along a mountain pass, E K was driving – because she HAS to be IN CONTROL OF EVERYTHING at all times. Well… and there’s also the fact that I actually cannot stand driving. I hate it. With a passion. But that’s a different blog…

Anywho – there we were, cruising along, and E K would point out stuff she was seeing ahead while the rest of us scanned out the side windows, looking for wildlife, fantastical views, etc. Along came a point when Her Supreme Evilness asked the O-spring a question. I don’t even remember what it was, to be honest. At any rate, the spring didn’t answer.

A few moments passed and E K spoke up again, saying, “Ooooooo-sppprrrriiiinnnnggg?” as she tried to grab our daughter’s attention.

Immediately, if not sooner, the child jumped out of her skin, ran around the still moving vehicle eight times, jumped back into her skin and with much trepidation said, “What? What did I do wrong?”

“What makes you think you did something wrong?” E K asked, somewhat perplexed.

The O-spring replied, “Because you said my name the slow way like you do to Daddy whenever he’s in trouble.”

Yep. I think she’s finally got it figured out. Took her long enough. I mean, it’s not like she doesn’t hear E K say my name “the slow way” on a daily basis.

In fact, I’ve been thinking of legally changing my name to “Mmmuuuuuurrrrvvvvvvv…”

More to come…

Murv