Jeff Flake: Kind to Puppies and Other Good Reasons To Elect Him Senator

 My brother Jeff Flake is running for the U.S. Senate.

The campaign has been long and the fight, 

both in the primary and the general has been fierce.

Current Jeff

Brother Jeff back in the day

image here

In July, in the midst of the primary, we had our big Flake family reunion and Pioneer Days Celebration in Snowflake. 

We were joined by this guy, a freelance writer named 

Mike Sager, who attended everything from the family rodeo, to a cookout in my parent's back yard.  

He visited amiably with all ten of my brothers and sisters and a host of children and grandchildren.  Instead of feeling spied upon, we enjoyed telling him stories that we have all told each other a million times.  Mike was gathering information for an article on Jeff that he was writing for Esquire Magazine

Later, photographer Gijs van der Most came to Snowflake
 and took dozens of photos, showing the place where we grew up.

(Dallin doesn't normally eat dinner with a parakeet on his shoulder, the photographer just liked it.)

I was a little awestruck hanging around a writer that really makes a living that way.  Mike does everything from celebrity interviews to political profiles to writing fiction.  I was a little worried about how the article on Jeff would turn out. 

I loved it and think you will too.

You can find it here.

last two photos by Gijs van der Most, Esquire Magazine

Been There, Done That

When I turned 40 my husband told me to jump out of an airplane.

So I did.

Actually, I requested a skydiving adventure for my birthday gift

 and although he had reservations, he complied.

This week, Austrian Felix Baumgartner did his own jump

 and I am incensed that Felix got worldwide press

 when our experiences were so similar.

Consider:

We both jumped out of flying
vehicles

Okay, so he jumped from 120,000 feet 

and I jumped from 13,000.  

What's a few feet among daredevils?

 He was wearing a spacesuit

I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt.

Some of us aren't scared of a little cold and lack of oxygen.

He had 5 minutes of free fall

                              I had 1 minute of free fall that felt like an hour

Felix was sponsored by Red Bull

I was sponsored by a nervous husband

He landed on the ground
                         So did I

He'll never do it again.

Neither will I.

images found here

Honey Boo Boo, You Shrunk My Brain

Even if you live in a van down by the river, 

you probably know who this little girl is.

image found here

Here name is Alana, but she is world famous as

"Honey Boo Boo Child"

because you don't get your own show when you're named Alana.

She first entered the public eye when she appeared on "Toddlers and Tiaras" as one of a myriad of little girls disguised as 70's era trollops.

image found here

 Honey Boo Boo and her family are working overtime
to demonstrate how very real they are
by cultivating and displaying
every natural bodily function to it's full effect. 
If there is an Emmy for gassiness,
Honey Boo Boo has it made.

image found here

H.B.B.'s mother is an enigma wrapped in flesh, 

a coupon cutting, belching oxymoron of torpor and ambition.

And she is a star.

Watching Honey Boo Boo and her family party in their yard next to the train tracks on their homemade slip and slide made out of garbage bags has a strangely cheering affect on all of us.  After an hour of Honey Boo Boo, watching Jersey Shore and Hollywood Housewives feels like watching  Masterpiece Theater. 

 

The more pathetic the behavior of those we are watching,

the better we feel about ourselves.

It's pride porn

and it's addictive (burp)

Crying Me a Moon River

When I was a girl, I used to lay with my eyes closed on our brown carpet in front of our big brown stereo cabinet with my ear to the brown netting over the speaker.  (We were fond of brown in those days... and tan, and beige.)  At the top of my healthy little lungs I would sing along with my first major crush,

 I need you baby 

and if it's quite alright
I need you baby to warm the lonely nights
I love you baby, 

trust in me when I say, 

Oh pretty baby don't let me down I pray
Oh pretty baby 

now that I found you stay
And let me love baby

let me love you.

I was probably taller than Andy Williams during the time I loved him, because I had grown inches overnight to achieve my 70" height during my 14th year.  I didn't care.  I knew we were meant for each other.

I loved Andy as passionately as I hated his breathy singing little French wife

Claudine Longet...

who left my dear Andy for a skier named Spider.  I don't remember how I came by so much information in a world devoid of the internet and People magazine, but I was fully informed of Claudine's evil ways and judged her like an Old Testament Prophet.

Andy crooned me through many a lonely angst filled teenage hour and I never missed his variety show.  It was here that  he let me down gently by introducing  me to a more appropriate crush, one my own age that I wouldn't have to convert to Mormonism so I could marry him in the Temple...

Goodnight Andy Williams,

your voice was too good to be true.

I'm a Smoothie Operator

I gave up on my old Oster Blender because I had to play the buttons like piano keys to get it to stop blending.   I don't play the piano,  so my lack of talent resulted in a bevy of blended blobs all over my kitchen.

Which is what lead me to this muscular beauty.  I usually prefer my kitchen appliances be weak and submissive but I was assured by many healthy people, that only a 800 horsepower blender could grind up the ingredients necessary to a create a green smoothie powerful enough to help me bench press 200 lbs. and give me 20/20 eyesight with night vision capabilities.

It has changed my life.

As promised, this mini wood chipper has the ability to grind up a small mammal without deboning. 

I started out by blending up breakfast shakes, and then progressed to lunch smoothies and now we are pretty much drinking all our meals.

Husband:  Hey, what do you have in mind for dinner tonight?

Me:  I thought we would have steaks.

Husband (brightening)  With baked potatoes?

Me:  Mmmm hmmm.  And green beans.

Husband:  That sounds so good, I was really getting tired of smoothies.

Me:  Not so fast sweetie, (pouring a thick brown amalgam into a quart mason jar).  I call this the "Bottomless Black Angus" and you're going to need a fat straw.

I still can't see in the dark, 

but give me a week or two.

 

Children: The Pride Cure

 Yesterday my 5 year old grandson was lying across my lap on the couch and he looked up lovingly and said,

"Grandma, why is your neck so wrinkly?"

While Liam was writing

 

My grandma's neck is not wrinkly, I must need glasses

500 times and washing all my windows, I thought about pride, which is the universal sin (common to everyone but me of course).  

Children begin the laborious process of stripping us of pride from the moment we conceive. 

Pregnancy:  The fun girl that could stay up all night is replaced by a boring whiner who falls asleep over a meal of saltines and snores.

Newborn: The lithe body that once sported the long lean muscle of a porsche with flirty curves has been replaced by the pudgy shape of a Dodge Minivan with an exhaust problem.

Toddler: While your neighbors little darling has mastered bladder/sphincter control since the age of 14 months, your 3 year old responds to repeated attempts at potty training by flushing his spiderman underwear down the toilet, cutting out Pampers coupons with his safety scissors and magneting them to the fridge.

Kindergartener:  You get the glare of death from your favorite grocery store manager because you didn't notice that your little iron chef has torn open the 5 lb. hamburger package and left a trail of meatballs down every aisle.  You are too embarrassed to redeem $50 worth of coupons you spent 2 days collecting.

Grade schooler: Your babysitter abruptly begins refusing further jobs, muttering something about your child's ability to levitate out of bed at night and the need for an exorcism.

Middle schooler: When you call your child's Algebra teacher to inquire about a failing grade, she asks you sympathetically how life is on the "outside" and whether you have a sympathetic parole officer.

High schooler: You find that your daughter has won first place in spirit points, wearing your favorite outfit for "Geek Day".

With five kids mostly raised, I can still find a few scraps of pride hanging in tatters from my wrinkly frame, but I'm counting on the grandkids to take care of them.

Ribbon Roping

I bet the thing you are missing most about the Olympics

 are those flexible girls twirling leftover New Year's Eve decorations. 

 I know I am.

As a little girl,

I can remember flinging myself around the living room 

in the flouncy white slip that I usually only wore on Sundays.

I always imagined that I looked as graceful as these

lithe little ribbon skippers.

In fact, I crashed into the furniture with regularity

and never went a day without a scabby patch or giant bruise

on my skinny knobby legs.

I wore them like olympic medals.


 

This poor girl obviously never had anyone to jump rope with.

But she invented her own little game 

and by Jiminy,

it took her all the way to the Olympics! 

I never did use a ball in my childhood routines.

My brothers would have killed me for using their good basketball 

and besides, it was usually a little on the flat side from the bullhead stickers

picked up on the dirt court where they shot baskets 

into the net nailed to the side of the barn.

If I'd only had a leotard
I could have been a contender.

The Gospel According to Liam

This is the handsome five-year-old man in my life.  

He started kindergarten today.

He is an animal lover 

and a great story-teller.

I especially enjoyed his retelling 

of one of Jesus' most moving miracles.  

It is found in the 17th chapter of Luke.

This is how Liam heard in in Sunday School.

One time a long time ago there were ten leopards. 

They wanted to be human. 

They found Jesus and he turned them human. 

 The leopards were really happy to be human. 

Then only one leopard came back to say thank you to Jesus. 

He was a really good leopard.

 

 Amen, Liam.  Amen

Headless Gymnastics: and Other Obscure Olympic Sports

There has been a goodly amount of grousing at my house during ye old Olympic Games. We have found countless hours of swimming and bikini volleyball, but nary a second of pretty plus weightlifting. 

image found here

NBC picks their pets and devotes hour after hour of coverage to them, completely ignoring the thrill of victory and agony of defeat in dozens of worthy sports.

For example. I bet you didn't see the moment that this ping pong ball was hit with such force it imbedded itself into an unfortunate athletic forehead and had to be removed with official olympic tweezers

And then there are the tangle sports.  There is nothing more exciting than watching a big crazy tangle of athletes, whether it is on the mat or in the water.  The tangle sports have been criminally ignored.



Here is a partial list of what else you have been missing.

• Melon Juggling  (Gold medal went to a Portugal farm boy with extraordinarily large hands

• Speed Mall Walking (Gold medal went to blue haired team from Pensacola Florida)

• Wine Tasting (Duh, France wins gold for the zillionth time in a row)

• Blood Letting (In this most ancient of sports, the Transylvanian team narrowly pulls off the gold medal win.  The upstart team from Forks, Washington, USA takes silver)

• Jello Moulding (USA takes home the gold in the well manicured hands of a motherly team from Utah

• Sand Sculpting (A first ever tie for the gold medal between Dubai and Kuwait) 

• Infidel Insults (Iran wins again with a string of invective that singed the beard of the judge from Sweden)

• Headless Gymnastics (China takes gold, silver and bronze)

image found here

Larainy Horrorscope: Guidance from the Galaxy

It's really sad to see the kind of messes you people get into without my guidance.  I've heard some horrifical stories involving wearing socks with sandals, vacationing in Branson, Missouri and eating 3 lbs. of clam dip at one sitting.

Here to save you from yourselves, once again I offer guidance from the galaxy in the form of a

 Larainy Horrorscope

Aries (the wind)

Watching 14 hours of Olympic gymnastics coverage does not imbue your tired old body with elastic capabilities.  Do not try the ottoman vault you have been contemplating or orthopedic treatment will be inevitable.

 

Taurus (the car)

The money you think you will soon inherit is actually sewn up in a trust for Li Li, an obese and temperamental  cat.  Don't buy the boat! 

 

Gemini (the spaceship)

You are misinterpreting your recurring dream about Batman.  You need to quit emailing Christian Bale and consider reroofing.  A surprise awaits you in the attic.

Cancer (the tropic)

 It is high time to drop the "I never shop at Walmart" pretense.  Your neighbors recognize you even with the wig and raincoat.

Leo (Tolstoy)

Two words: new deodorant.

Virgo (the dizzy)

Screaming at the TV during campaign commercials and burning campaign mailers in a gigantic pile on your front lawn does not prove your patriotism.  You need to register to vote.

Scorpio (the venomous)

Now is the time to make your movie musical pitch for that screenplay/score you've been writing; the rollicking but tender "Alice Cooper: My Grandmother Was a Cherokee Princess"

Sagittarius (the droopy)

Sixteen is your number.  Unless you're anemic, then your number is three.  Unless your cholesterol is high, then your number is 451.

Capricorn (the vegetable)

No one is ever going to want the dog hair you have been saving in old pillowcases in the basement, even though it would make a fine sweater.  Your stars signal dire fire hazard issues!

Aquarius (the fishtank)

Romance is in the air!  Unfortunately, you don't have a plane ticket.

Pisces  (the formula)

This is not a good time to make important decisions.  Put off the "paper vs. plastic" conundrum until you have a clear head.