Back to the Future

So! It’s been a year. Or two. Life is a lot more boring when you no longer live in paradise. Not that Texas isn’t paradise! Please put away your shotguns. Thank you.

Things have probably happened that would make good stories, but let’s not pretend – now that I am nearing 30, my mind is going and I don’t remember any of them. Quick update:

- We bought another dog
- We bought a house
- I started working as a waitress
- I stopped working as a waitress
- I finally graduated college with a Biology degree and Chem minor
- I got a big girl job at North American ENT, where I am currently enjoying wearing tailored shirts instead of bowling shirts.
- At some point I morphed into a 50 year old woman, who is now vastly concerned with the state of her garden, birds and butterflies, much more so that what is going on with domestic or foreign policy.
- Also, we now live at Home Depot and/or Lowes. Owning a home will do that to you.

And there you have it. I will probably be posting pics from the last year or two to remind myself of the horror of laying sod, our new puppy, as well as chronicling our descent into modern-day hippies, with our earth-loving ways and whatnot. We will probably be required to move to Oregon at some point where we can fit in with ‘our kind’ – this will probably happen when our elderly neighbors are driven to murder attempts due to the noise from our chickens. Although, I do draw the line at wearing hemp-related items.

Hopefully now that I am no longer actively putting us in a giant debt-hole and my weekends are free we will have some fun things to post from time to time too. If it gets too boring, we’ll have to go to some state where the ground isn’t flat and I have the chance to trip/twist my ankle/fall over some cliff somewhere.

Finally, I will subject you all to our home-related projects, which, somewhat sadly, will probably not be humorous because David’s usually in charge, and he does things right the first time – bloopers are pretty rare. I suppose that's a good thing. He does projects, I'll probably start back up with the food experiments.

All in all, I guess I’m going to have to start getting some intelligent insights to write down, now that I can’t rely on pure environmental entertainment. Drat.

In Which We Make Dirt (or Getting Smelly at Home)

You all know my lovely husband – intelligent, focused, diligent and focused. Intensely focused. I cannot quite describe what happens when he locks upon an idea or project. The first time this happened, we ended up with a composter that can withstand tornadoes. Our 1950s house will be flattened, but that composter will be standing tall.

Truly, this is a great character trait to have in a husband – if he does something, I know he will do it well. Of course, if we happen to be working on a project together, eventually I will reach a point where it is Close Enough, but of course it never is, and then I am @#^% out of luck and become grumpy.

That's one of the reasons this picture is so funny - while using the circular saw he cut through the cord. Ha!

Aww, dejected David.

After buying the house, we began the descent into Homeowner Projects. And a very well-researched descent it is. Anyway, so, we’re making dirt now. This is step 1 of 3 to turn our place into the Dyer Homestead. Perhaps we’ll get a tax credit.

All finished! It is a dirt palace!

No more digression! To make that lovely compost as cheaply as possible, we used a real simple design – the sides were made with used pallets, and David constructed a lid. Driving around town became like a constant Easter egg hunt. We’d be all dressed up, and one of us would reach across the dash and cry, “Pallet!!’’ Which would cause the other person to swerve across sometimes 4 lanes of traffic so I could fight with a raccoon over a pallet THAT INSTANT, sometimes in my high heels. Apparently we were worried the pallet police were going to swoop in and snatch up those valuable heaps of lumber if we paid attention to things like street signs and driving laws. Pshaw. Those are for those chumps that pay over $100 for an inferior composter at Home Depot.

Gotta have access to all that black gold we'll be making.

So here it is. There is all kinds of support and metal hinges and what have you in that thing.

David’s actually made another one, since we discovered this fall that established neighborhoods have trees that import leaves from other dimensions to drop in our driveway. Our ‘hold’ pile was just as big as our first one.

Who knows when we actually will get compost – I am basically just dumping whatever kitchen (non-meat/fatty) scraps and lawn clippings I happen to have at the time. This is completely by-passing things I should be paying attention to, like nitrogen balance and keeping it moist, but dang, the hose is really far away. David tries, but it is moving kinda slow.

Multi-opening capabilities!

Hopefully someday soon I’ll get on here and be way too excited about making dirt, something that has been happening naturally for eons, but now apparently I’ve decided it needs my help.

A Lesson in Humility. Also, there was a Wedding at one point.

My cousin Holland was getting married, to a great guy who I actually really like named John. He's sweet, funny and loves Holland very much. One of the things that really sucked about living in Hawaii was that we were so far away from our family, we missed everything of importance. So, I was overjoyed that I was able to link my moving back to Texas with her wedding. Her rehearsal dinner was going to be a luau – even better. I could show up with leis for them and be a rockstar. What up! I could do something cool for my relatives and her in-laws would love me, and we all know how I suffer from Everyone Must Like Me syndrome. I was happy. The plan was to fly into Phoenix Friday before the rehearsal dinner.

Guess who didn’t plan well and was up all night trying to get the last things ready for my final goodbye to Hawaii? Me. Guess who doesn’t sleep on planes and was on a red-eye? ME. So, I was in full zombie mode for the rest of the day.

Mom picked me up from the airport, which started off a fun day of everyone figuring out I have a tattoo, bc I didn’t tell anyone about it at the time. What, miss their facial expressions when they found out? That was half the fun. I had even gone to the trouble of photoshopping all of my previous blog pictures so they would not know that I had one. Mom was so proud.

Courtney was better. She and Paul naturally assumed it was a temporary, so when I told them it wasn’t, she said “IT’S NOT!?!” and proceeded to try to rub it off while her eyes bugged out of her head, cartoon-style.

Hotel room. Because OF COURSE you need to see it. I just don't know why.

I tried to sleep some and relax by the pool, but I was still pretty exhausted by the time I got to the rehearsal dinner. I was mildly apprehensive bc I was not sure what all the family would say about the tattoo, and some of it was poking out of the shirt I was wearing. I keep waiting for the damnation speeches, but they never came. I guess they all realized the Ellard Weirdness Quotient would be maxed out at some point in the evening by my mother. They were correct.

We arrived at John’s parent’s house, and were greeted warmly and thanked for the leis. The party was very well done, completed by a whole roasted pig with an apple in its mouth and everything. To my surprise, they did have some adult beverages – I helped myself to a Mike’s Lemonade, bc those things are actually tasty. I think we made it through dinner before all the shenanigans began.

Holland and John - aren't they cute?

Aloha! Leave it to the professionals, people.

Ah, I missed these two huge dorks.

Hi piggy! I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll eat your butt.

Family, early in the evening when they were still ok with claiming us as kin.

It all started with my natural innate clumsiness. Although, I’m not sure even I could be blamed for this one – I was tired, in heels, and walking around a outdoor is an area that was not well lit, AND the patio apparently went down a step and I hadn’t noticed. So, NATURALLY, I tripped. I actually managed not to fall down, took a few stumbling steps, recovered, then went in the house to get my camera. At this point I had had half of one Mike’s.

So, I was mildly confused when I came out of the house and John’s mother, Kim, came over to my sister and I and asked me if I wanted coffee. I assured her several times that no, I didn’t even like coffee, and I was fine. I thought she was just being a great hostess when I turned around and saw my sister was trying not to laugh.

“What?”

Hiding her smile behind her hand, my sister looked at me and said, “She offered you coffee because she thinks you’re DRUNK.”

“WHAT?!”

“Because you stumbled!” She was openly laughing now, and turned to Paul to let him know of the hilarity going on at my expense.

Well, this is upsetting to me, because I actually liked their son, I was certainly nowhere near drunk, and I am not a heathen, for petessake. I spent the next hour or so trying to unobtrusively do things near her that showed I was not drunk, like balancing on one leg, in heels, to fix my other shoe. This did not work.

The night degraded from there. At the beginning of the evening, the MC asked who had traveled the farthest to be there. Considering I had just flown 3,000 miles I was pretty sure I was that person, and announced this to everyone. Later on, I got called over to the pool by my mom, who was currently in her ‘happy place’. She was sitting talking to a nice girl, around 14, and her mom who had traveled all the way from Canada. We had exchanged pleasantries for maybe 13 seconds before my mom tried to lift my skirt over my head.

Granted, she apparently just wanted to show them my gnarly scar on my thigh from my recent bike crash, and overcompensated. Even my 27 years of expecting craziness from my mom couldn’t prepare me for this, and I probably shrieked a little as I backed away from her and escaped to our table.

Unbeknownst to me, at least until later when we were comparing notes, Paul happened to be talking to John’s father while this little episode was taking place. They were having a nice conversation until he heard me shriek.

Paul is a real pleasant guy until you mess with one of his people (or his dog) and then he gets real intense and is going to Akido-chop someone. While I know Paul probably wants a boy so he can teach him how to shoot and be manly, I really hope he has a girl at some point, because I think he would be the perfect protective, concerned dad.

So, he heard this and went into police officer-mode and soon spotted me being accosted by someone at the pool. Unfortunately, my mother had recently gotten a very short haircut and kind of looked like a boy from behind. Paul cut off mid-sentence, probably got a murderous look on his face, and strode away from John’s dad. He got a few steps away before he figured out it was my mother, and then tried to return and start the conversation back up, but it was too late. His dad looked Concerned, and Paul was branded. At this point, they probably wrote off anyone directly related to my mother.

This was further enforced later in the evening when my mother suddenly stood up in front of the crowd and started calling for everyone’s attention. Courtney and I immediately reverted to childhood, and attempted to slouch down behind other people.

Sadly, it was not my day.

Yes, Courtney recovered enough to record this for posterity. Gee, thanks.

My mother had dragged that poor little 14 year old Canadian swimmer up on stage, still in her swimsuit and wrapped in a towel. She proceeded to denounce my ‘farthest travelled’ title in favor of this girl, which was alright with me. But no, there had to be a physical contest, of course. God forbid we retain any shred of dignity we might have left. I refused to go up there, but my mother has a much higher tolerance for public embarrassment, so after several uncomfortable moments in which all of Holland’s friends turned around to stare at me with the same kind of glee that people watch COPS!, I gave in and went up to my mother.

After several years passed in Public Embarrassment time, I refused to arm-wrestle the girl for the title and told her she could have it. Besides, I suffer from twiggy-extremity syndrome, and she would have kicked my ass. The crowd grew bored, and with not enough required attention to sustain her my mother drifted off, leaving me up there with this poor confused girl. I tried to tell her not to worry about it, but gave us both for lost causes and sat down. For Courtney, it was just getting better and better – “I feel like I’m in one of your blog posts!”

All I remember about the rest of the night is the various times Kim addressed me, mainly because Courtney delighted in reenacting them over the next few days.

Once she said something about having a good time, and pointed to me and said, “I know you are!”

Later, it was, "make sure you take it easy!" from across the backyard.

As we were leaving, we were attempting to show we had some upbringing that didn’t occur in a barn, and after thanking her for the lovely evening we turned to go find her husband. As we walked off, she said, “I hope you can make it tomorrow!” while pantomiming prying her eyelids wide apart.

The wedding was at 6 pm. Sigh.

I wish you could see my sister tell this part of the story. She does it so well. She never tired of hearing me tell other people about this god-awful night, so she was always on hand with the visuals. By the 4^th or so telling, she had it down. I miss you, girl.

Reeling from this last encounter, we approached the husband, who was surrounded by a circle of his friends, and thanked him as well. My horror was complete when he said to me, in as friendly a manner as possible, “I heard you were upset that no one noticed your tattoo.” And then asked to see it.

If a person could evaporate from shame, I would have been vapor right then. My cheeks burning, I showed him, because what else was I supposed to do?! I was mortified. Beyond mortified. I had a slight out-of-body-horrified moment. Weddings are very special things, and all about the bride and groom – even if I was pregnant I wouldn’t tell anyone because it’s not about me! That’s kind of the whole point! And here they think that I am mad because no one is paying attention to me, some random cousin. Afraid my eyebrows were about to start singeing from the heat of my blush, I decided to just get the hell out of there.

Later I was trying to think of how that moment came to fruition, and I remembered that at one point mom asked me if anyone had been upset about the tattoo, and I replied, HAPPILY, “no, no one’s said anything about it.” You have to wonder how these things get processed in her head for them to come out so badly mangled to other people. I made a note to smother her in her sleep later, but forgot about it.

Paul happily clung to this moment, and teased me the whole way home about being a drunken embarrassment. After much discussion, Courtney and Paul decided that because of my tattoo, I was immediately branded as a ‘rebel’ and therefore all my actions were to be taken in the worst way possible.

The actual wedding was gorgeous. I mean, crazy neat location, good food, family, it was a great time.

You know, once my mother quit driving randomly around the desert with my grandmother, insisting she was not lost.

Reception corner

Empty wedding area

Still waiting. Might as well take a picture and pretend like we aren't all hiding up there because the crowd is about to mutiny and stone all those connected to the delay.

Kudos to Aunt Cheryl – she took the whole wedding not-starting-until-who-knows-when thing pretty well. I think I would be looking into hitmen if I was her. We spent a lot of time telling random people that no, we had no idea where my mother was, and no, she probably had not kidnapped my grandmother.

Mom eventually showed up, and the wedding was not kicked off with a homicide, which was good. It was very lovely, and John and Holland are a beautiful, godly couple, which is always a blessing to see.

Is John crying? How cute.

Teaching Paul to be coy.

My sweet Aunt - isn't she pretty?

Newly married Demarchais and family

Pretty!

Much to my hindsight dismay, I had packed a strapless dress to wear to the wedding. The tattoo would be in full view at all times. Luckily, I had packed a shawl too, just in case, and I did make use of it. In fact, the first time Kim saw me across the room she pointed to my shawl and gave an exaggerated wink and a thumbs up. I think it was at this point that I finally quit caring.

This was further enforced after the wedding, when Court and I were taking grandmother to the reception in the building in the back after the family pictures. Apparently we were talking too long and Kim started kind of yelling at grandmom. I will give her some leeway, because she was trying to throw a wedding and was probably kind of stressed and overreacting. I think she realized this when we saw that Court and I had stopped and were unabashedly staring at her incredulously. She tried to smooth things over and left, after which grandmother made my night by muttering to us, “What is WRONG with that lady.”

There was an indoor garden!

What? We're weird. I can't wait until we start embarrassing our own children.

This is Kim - she doesn't look too happy right now. Maybe she saw me in the crowd.

The rest of the wedding passed in warm fuzzies, dancing, and great food. I had a wonderful time talking to relatives I hadn’t seen in years. Mom had her final say in insanity when she decided they were taking too long (grandmother wanted to go) and CUT A PIECE OF THE WEDDING CAKE BEFORE THEY DID.

I shit you not.

Thankfully, she had the wherewithal not to cut from the top tier, but seriously. What the hell.

We spent the rest of the evening pretending she was a distant relative.

Look! You can hardly tell someone's already helped themselves.

The next morning Cheryl and Steve threw a scrumptious brunch at their home, proving that they are too nice for their own good. Personally, I bet they would have locked themselves in their bedroom and never change out of their PJs instead.

It was amazing, we got to actually talk to them when they weren’t being pulled ten different directions, and got a tour of the compound.

Backyard

Oh yeah, I used to be tan.....

This defines Paul and I's relationship

Look at his beautiful garden! I want to be just like you when I grow up, Uncle Steve.

More backyard

Man, I'd hate to see their water bill.

Grill Man Cave. I want one.

Also, we got to watch my mom tempt a myocardial infarction as she attempted to play Wii for the first time. It was easy to see why Courtney and I have never really had a whole lot of success in dance clubs.

Yes, she fell down at some point and couldn't get up.

All in all, it was still a wonderful weekend regardless, and I had a great time. I hopped in the car with Court and Paul and we headed back across the states to get to Dallas.