There’s a giant Coney-Island hot dog-shaped stand in the middle of the mountains. Really. You drive up Hwy 285, into the Rockies and about thirty minutes from here, if you should glance to your left, you’ll see it, nestled in among the pines. Although it’s slightly out of the way, there’s generally a line out the door and down the bridge in front. Next person to visit gets to take a field trip with me because I’ve passed it a few times but have yet to actually stop and eat there. And in spite its being named one of “10 Great Places to Feel Dwarfed by Kitsch” by USA Today, apparently the dogs are actually tasty and not just coasting on their good looks. So we’re totally going.
It’s like a Frat Party Around Here…
I asked Timothy to pick up his room the other day and I looked him carefully in the eye and slowly told him exactly what he needed to do, then said, “Do you understand what I just said?” just so he couldn’t plead ignorance later. He looked at me, then very loudly passed gas, guffawed and said, “That means ‘yes’.”
I later told Chris this story and he said, “Oh, that reminds me — your brother called.”
I wanted to commemorate this historic election and have something to show the kids when they were older and the idea of not ever having had a black president seems completely foreign to them. So I bought a copy of this week’s People magazine with Barack Obama on the cover. I see this as a sign of maturity, because I know I’m actually going to read People. There was a time in my life when I would have bought Time instead, intending to read it. I would have read the first few pages with the fluffy parts and probably the cover story and then they would have written something detailed about the surge in Iraq or interest rates and their effect on the world economy and I would have put Time carefully on my coffee table for everyone to see and busted out In Style for actual reading. Because as much as I need to be informed about Iraq and the economy, I really need to know whether low-rise jeans are finally, finally out of vogue (Side note: how come when I was young and thin and in high school, the style was baby doll dresses and empire-waisted flannel granny dresses that could have hidden the gingerbread children from The Nutcracker and the minute I had kids and perhaps still look like there are more in there that haven’t come out yet, low-rise jeans and strappy tank tops come out? God’s way of keeping me humble?)
So in ten years, when the kids are going through old stuff and come across People magazine, they can also read about Beyonce’s dresses and Lauren Conrad. I was never interested in the war strategies or economic policies from when my parents were young. But I did mock their fashion sense.
Waiting…
So, I don’t want this to sound like a complaint, but in the two years we’ve been here, we haven’t yet gone this late in the season with no snow. Don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying the weather. But for about two or three weeks now, people have been getting jumpy. It’s like everyone knows snow’s coming and we’re all worried that the longer it holds out, the worse it will be when it gets here. No one can just enjoy today. And the past few days, the weather’s gone from cloudy to sunny to windy to really cold but with no snow. It’s like waiting for a sneeze that you can feel is coming and then doesn’t.
Chris is probably the only person over the age of ten who’s actually disappointed that it hasn’t snowed yet. He keeps waking up and looking out the window and getting bummed out by the good weather.
Now that I’ve actually said all this out loud, I predict snow overnight and into tomorrow.
