We went off to a tiny little dot of a town in Eastern Oregon last weekend and the first day we were back we had an unexpected (but delightful) house guest, so I am just now catching my breath.

Oregon was…hellacious AND fabulous, all at the same time. I like lists, so Ima make one.

Oregon Rules: Pimps Up

1. I was not at home, cooking and cleaning. Instead, I was cooking and cleaning at someone else’s house. WHAT COULD BE BETTER than the challenge of scrubbing a new toilet? NOTHING, that’s what. Okay, so maybe this one goes into both categories.
2. The house we stayed in has a two-person bathtub, the type with the faucet in the middle.
3. We saw coyote poo in the road, and I forgot my camera. Dammit! It had fur in it!
4. Franny had a good time, despite the fact that she complained about the heat the whole time. Poor Seattle kid doesn’t grok heat or seeing the sun. “Why is it so hot here, Mom?”
5. Companion discovered that he can grill like a motherfucker. He’s only grilled once before, at my mom’s house. My mom was all, “Here, grill these,” and he was all, “But…I’ve…never…done…this…before….” He sort of jacked it up then, but this time was golden. Supa says this skill is built into the Y chromosome, and I’m inclined to believe her.
6. We had Thai food at the only joint in the nearest “large” town, Hood River. I love that joint, it’s actually less of a Thai joint, and more of a Thai bus/trailer thing, and it’s in the parking lot of a former gas station. It’s not the best I’ve ever had, but she’s in a trailer, fer chrissakes. She could hold her own with any greasy Thai spoon in the U-District here, I’d warrant.

Oregon Drools: Hoes Down

1. The aforementioned heat. Man, I’m not used to, you know, sweating anymore. coughcoughI’mawusscoughcough.
2. The coyotes howled intermittently all night Saturday night, and I kept snapping awake because I realized I’m actually prey. Imagine that.
3. The house was not childproofed, which we forgot, so we ran after Strudel all weekend while she was awake.
4. For a short weekend away, we had to endure a lot of car shenanigans. Said shenanigans included, but were not limited to:
a. Screaming: The Basics
b. Advanced Screaming: Vacillating from a Low-Grade Whine to Ear-Splitting Wails
c. Throwing things
d. Refusing to eat and/or use the bathroom at appropriate times
e. Repeatedly crossing “The Designated Sibling Boundary Line” in the backseat. “GET. YOUR. HANDS. OFF. HER. CAR. SEAT. I WILL EAT YOUR HEAD.”

Finally, a bad thing that deserves its own paragraph: by babies have finally turned on each other. As we were crossing the state line, Strudel was doing some half-assed whining and I glanced in the rear view and saw something flashing in the backseat. I thought Strudel had something and was waving it around. I sat up and took a closer look and realized that Franny was repeatedly hitting Strudel with her cloth headband that is covered in sequins, which was making Strudel disgruntled enough to whine but not cry.

“If I see you doing that again, I will leave you at the side of the road,” I said forcefully, feeling my stepfather’s (who was criminally spastic on vacations) spirit inhabit my body and speak through my mouth. “Do NOT hit my baby.”

I was so torn. My babies are now hitting each other. And my first child, the child of my heart who is so special to me because she made me a mother in the first place…I was completely possessed by the urge to jettison her from the car. “Do I really need more than one child?” I thought to myself. My heart broke a little, partly because it’s super sad, and partly because I was feeling hormonal. I am okay now.

Figure 1: The view from our deck of Mount Hood.

Figure 2: Strudel passed out during the farmer’s market, so we laid her out under a tree while we had Thai bus lunch. Fortunately, she woke up before we scarfed all the noodles.

Figure 3: Franny enjoys a cookie dough cone after eating a delicious meal off the Thai bus. I am not a sugar nazi on vacation.

Figure 4: Strudel enjoys her first ever cone. Moments later, she flapped her arms and the scoop went flying into the dirt. But she was super happy eating the cone.

Figure 5: Companion yawns while the kids lick their cones. We were too exhausted on this trip to form a plan for abandoning the children.

Figure 6: Dude, sometimes I realize I have some crucial eyebrows. It’s like the tweezers just bounce off or something.


“Hey.”

“Hey there.”

“The kids are in bed.”

“I know!”

“Do you wanna….”

“YES?”

“…sleep?”

“Oh, hells yes. ‘Night.”