The Last Three Months

Wow. Is it really already almost the end of August? I swear it was just the first part of June a couple of weeks ago. Well I guess the old saying is true “time flies when you’re having fun.” A lot has happened since I wrote last. Since you know it was May or something…when I last wrote…but that really isn’t important. What is important is that since then lots of things have happened. And I mean lots…I mean right? Sheesh, almost three month’s worth of stuff.

Regrettably, however, most of those things are quite droll and boring.

Stuff like sleeping which probably accounted for at least 20% of the time since the last time I wrote. Eating/sitting around/talking probably covered another 15% not to mention all the movies/TV/Books I read which probably covers another 10-15% which brings us right up to about 50% of the time that has passed. Then there is all other mundane things…brushing my teeth, getting dressed, taking Claire potty, taking myself potty, taking out the trash…you know all that stuff. So, I figure after you factor in all that - we are only looking at about 30% of the time in which something truly remarkable could happen. And don’t you worry plenty of things did happen. I’m just only going to talk about two. Not because other things didn’t happen, (because they did, you know stuff like traveling back in time for eight minute periods to save Chicago from a nuclear terrorist attack and saving hundreds of people on a commuter train, and stuff…(if you are thinking…hey that sounds like the movie Source Code…well they had to get the idea from somewhere. Right? Well I’m just sayin’.)

The first thing that happened to us over the last three months that is worthy of mention is that we went to Bojangles. Now, if you are like me the first thing you think of when you hear Bojangles is the old Nitty Gritty Dirt Band remake of the song Mr. Bojangles about Bill Bojangles the tap dancer in the 30’s….you know…let me clear me throat…

“I knew a man Bojangles who danced for you in worn out shoes…he jumped so high, jumped so high and he lightly touched down …Mr. Bojangles, Mr. Bojangles …dance”

Or something like that.

Anyway, obviously we are not talking about that particular Bojangles we are talking about the “Famous Chicken and Biscuits” fast food Bojangles with the catchy TV commercial slogan “Hey, Its Bo Time.” Apparently, Bojangles is like the Mecca of fried chicken and biscuits here in the south. Well maybe not THE Mecca, I mean not only is that politically incorrect to say it isn’t entirely accurate as there is technically only one Mecca and there are lots, (like over 500, I just checked on Wikipedia) of Bojangles…so probably more like the Southern Baptist Church of fried chicken…just to be fair. Anyway. It’s a big deal here. An example of how big a deal. Well let’s just say Hillary mentioned at school once that she hadn’t been to Bojangles before and people stopped talking to her for a week. Literally. It is that huge of a deal. (ok they didn’t stop talking to her for a week but they did look at her like she was from another planet (aka the mountain west)). When people did start talking to her again (which was really only about 5 seconds later) she was informed that she HAD to go to Bojangels. To which Hillary responded “isn’t it just like KFC?” And that is actually when everyone stopped talking to her for a week.

Well we went. Finally. Back in may. And well it was truly a noteworthy experience. And here, like they say down here in the south “is ow it ’ll ent dwn.” (how it all went down).

Well we pull up. I think, “hum this looks like a KFC to me…the sell Fried Chicken in a Bucket and it’s fast food…yep…pretty much KFC. However, as soon as we walk in the door I immediately realize that this place is definitely not a KFC. How do I know? No white people. When we walked in, the way the heads whipped around in there -whoosh- it was like the most curious/strangest looking thing in the world had just walked in the door. We might as well have been Sarah Palin. Everyone looked at us with this sort of expectant “well, looky here, look what the cat dragged in, lets watch and see what crazy thing they are going to do next” sort of look. Well we went up to the counter to order. That’s what we did.

As we approach the counter we try to read the menu, but mostly we are trying to overcome our obvious and decidedly un-cool western whiteness. When we get to the cashier the lady behind the counter finds us such a curios and amusing sight that she actually lets out a little laugh while she says “what y’all want?”

We have no idea. We have never been here before. And we are still trying to overcome our whiteness. So, Hillary, trying to by a few more moments for us “to look at the menu” says “well, we’ve never been here before…what all do you have?” At this point the cashier looks at us, tries to hold back her laughter. Fails. Laughs, does a half eye roll that says “white people” then says “uhm, CHICKEN.” Hillary, trying to remain calm, says “right, but I mean what’s good? Can you suggest something?” The cashier is just flabbergasted by this question starts laughing and calls out to her manager, and says: “hey, these people want to know what is good here” but her tone means: “hey, you gotta come check these clueless white folks out..They are hilarious”

So he wanders over looks at us. Looks at the cashier that is now laughing outright, tries to hide an amused smirk and says “most people get the chicken and biscuits.” I say we will get two of those and a kids chicken strips meal with milk. The cashier who is still laughing says “white or chocolate” I say, and I’m fully self conscious of the irony here, “white.”

Laughing Cashier (LC): What sides do you want?

Hillary: What do you have?

Disbelieving LC that is obviously thinking to herself did this white girl really just ask me that again: Fries, and whatever else is listed on the sign up there.

Hillary Clam as a summer morning: Well I don’t know, what do you think Will?

Totally Self Aware of his whiteness and flustered Will: I don’t care, who cares, just say something. We’ll get the fries.

Cashier: That’ll be $15.47

I pay and we move down the counter. Meanwhile the manager is getting our meals ready and putting them on the tray. He fills up two large drinks and puts them on the tray and I say to Hillary “I don’t remember telling anyone what we wanted to drink.”

Hillary replies, “that’s because we didn’t”

Frantically I look at the menu again, and sure enough it says “Free Ice Tea with every meal order.” Oh great I think here we go again.

Will to Hillary: “They gave us tea”

Hillary: “hum, that’s not going to work”

Hillary to manager: “excuse me sir, hum, can we get different drinks?”

Manager with bemused look on his face: “hum, I guess…what do you want?”

Hillary: “do you have lemonade?”

Manager: “Nope”

Hillary: “Water is fine then.”

Manager, with totally entertained cashier now listening in: “No water either. Just Tea and soda”

Will: “how about Sprite”

Manager: “hum, no…”

Hillary: “What do you have?”

Insert burst of laughter from eavesdropping cashier.

Manager barely containing his mirth: “Sierra Mist”

Will: “Perfect. We’ll take it”

We get our food. And go to the napkins and condiment table. No ketchup. There is hot sauce, but no ketchup. I look around. Other people have ketchup. But I can’t see any on the condiment table. So I say to Hillary “hey, where is the ketchup?”

Hillary: “I don’t know, other people have ketchup should I go ask?”

Will: “nope. Let’s not give them any more amusement then we need to. Let’s just go sit down.”

We sit down. Everyone is looking at us out of the corner of their eye. I start softly singing the song from Sesame Street “one of these is not like the other; one of these doesn’t belong…”

Hillary: “It’s Bo Time!”

The other thing that we did over the last three months that was noteworthy is we went to Idaho/Utah to visit friends and family. As always it was a blast. There are actually too many fun things to list but aside from just seeing and talking to everyone which we always enjoy here are a few highlights more or less in the order they occurred:

Brooklyn’s birthday party

The “Treehouse” in ogden

Playing “NBA Jam” with Derek and Amy and later Lael and Elise

Going to see “Rio”

Camping with the Griffins at “the property”

Being scared of the two moose (moosen? Meese? Moxen? Mooses?) that came within 10 yards of our campfire while at “the property.”

Keeping Mom and Dad Griffin up past their bedtimes

The Farm (aka the Taylor’s)

Hamburgers with the Plicka’s

Teasing Ericka and Peter

Bowling with the Petersons

Seeing Mack and Lacey's ridiculously awesome backyard. oh yeah, and talking to Mack while there :)

Going to West Yellowstone and seeing “Dirty rotten scoundrels”

Jordan’s water party

Seeing Tyler and Tashie

Going to Yellowstone Park with Granny and Papa

Visiting with Travis and Brandi…Kambrie is huge! And adorable!

Talking with/Teasing Robert

Fireworks at the Marquits for the 24^th

Breakfast with Lael and Elise

Wackie Six

Camping at Redfish with Smiths and Great Grandpa Baird

Fishing (Claire caught her first Fish)

Going to Great Grandma Smith’s on Sunday

There were actually a lot of other things as well but since I have been writing this post for over an hour now, I think I am going to stop with what I have listed. I will only add that we are extremely grateful to all those that hosted us, let us eat your food, made us meals, gave us everything we needed and generally ensured that we had a smashing good time.

Bunch of random Pics and stuff from last three months:

This one is of Claire and her Friend dancing at a blue grass show we went to last week

So It's Been Awhile

Well we finally went to the lake this past week. I say finally, but really we have already been to the lake already this season. We went about three weeks ago, but we went in the late afternoon and only Claire got in the water. Personally, I would count that as "full outing." However, I was informed that to be counted as a "full outing" all members of the party need to get in the water. Thus, we finally went to the lake. It was fun.

We got there at 12:27pm on Friday, which, honestly is the perfect time to get to a lake. This is because 12:27 pm is right when the early "mommy" crowd and all the loud bedlamites that accompany them are leaving (so they can get home home for lunches and naps) but still before the later "single" crowd and all the swagger and flapdoodle that accompanies them start arriving.

But rather it is the time when all the grand people are arriving. And so you get to share the lake beach with pleasant grandparent type folks who all coo and smile at your daughter and look at your little family with that look of "ah what a sweet little family..." and you feel like all of a sudden you just time warped to the 1950's when women still wore one piece bathing suits and men still wore a shirt unless they were actually in the water (or looked like Sean Connery). And since everyone knows the 50's where the golden age of America - well, it's perfect.

Or perhaps it is the fact that I don't have to get out of bed early to get there by 12:27pm that makes it enjoyable for me...then again it is also very probable that I enjoy arriving at that time because there are simply less people in general there and thus less people to witness the unveiling of the brilliant whiteness or "second sun" AKA "the other white meat" that is my upper body when I go swimming. Who knows. It could be a myriad of sundry reasons, but the fact remains that 12:27 pm on a Friday is the perfect time to arrive at a Lake beach.

Anyway, we had a grand time. Claire played in the water, we cooked some hotdogs, I sat on the beach, Hillary got to swim, Claire and I dug a mini lake in the sand, I made a huge sand mountain which Claire throughly enjoyed destroying and ultimately even I jumped in the water for a time, (thus fulfilling the requirement for a "full outing.")

We even saw a snake. Personally, I do not like snakes. I wouldn't say I was afraid of them because this is a public blog and such an admission might be wrongly interpreted as "unmanly" and let's face it, I spend most of my days watching dora the explorer, playing with dolls and having tea parties with Disney princesses so I can't just go loosing "manly" points on something like being afraid of snakes...I don't have enough to spare. Anyway, it wasn't that big of a snake...3ft at most...and it was just swimming on by... no closer than two feet...just close enough for you to go "oh my, that's a snake" and calmly pick your daughter up and get out of the water.

Certainly nothing that would cause your heart to suddenly thump hard against your chest and instigate a semi-frantic uncoordinated lunge from the water yanking your daughter with you so hard that she later says "Dada that wasn't nice." No certainly nothing like that. Although if such a scenario did happen to have occurred one could not be blamed for such a reaction because there is a large concentration of copperheads in the area and any such reaction would have surely stemmed from concern rather than fear. Certainly.

In other news we all got sun burned. Well I say "all" but really I mean me. Since Hillary doesn't burn and Claire had sunscreen. But I have been burning for as long as I can remember so no biggie there...just business as usual.

Anyway, Hillary started her internship (which is actually technically called an externship, for reason of which I am unsure) with a Judge on the State Court of Appeals in Raleigh. So far she is really enjoying the work. She is partial to research and writing and that is most of what her position entails, so it follows that she would enjoy it. She commutes to Raleigh everyday so she is gone from about 7am till 6:30pm everyday which makes for long days but she gets Fridays off so that helps make up for the longer days. I am getting ready for the LSAT, only two weeks to go. I wouldn't say I am getting nervous because, again, that would be "unmanly," but let's just say that I am anxiously engaged in preparing.

Well, that is about it for the last little few weeks here. Sorry no pictures this time. I'm a lameo. I know, your thinking, for "realsies?" "no pictures?" like we really care about you going to the beach, we just want to see pictures of Claire! But alas it is true, no pictures. I will do better next time.

Hillary and Claire Pick some Berries. Yo.

Hillary and Claire went to pick some strawberries at a local farm this morning and Hillary wanted to blog about it so here it is the first blog of hopefully many from Hillary:

This morning Claire and I ventured out to a berry farm here in Chapel Hill to pick strawberries. Though apparently there are several in the area, we went to the Waller family farm http://www.wallerfamilyfarm.com. You can buy pre-picked strawberries by the quart or by the gallon or you can pick them yourself for $1.45 a lb. Of course, the reason you drive out there is for the exquisite taste of fresh strawberries that you have picked yourself (yes, they do taste better)-- so you pick them. We got our mud shoes on (there has been a lot of rain here lately) and ventured out for a real agricultural experience. It was soo fun! It totally reminded me of home. It reminded me of all those mornings out picking beans in the garden. The bending over for long periods of time and checking under the leaves to make sure you haven’t missed any. Thank you mom and dad for having a garden when we were young! Those are such great memories, and we cultivated more than vegetables in our backyard. It was good honest hard work, and delicious food too!

I’m really glad I went. It was therapeutic. Especially in all the hustle and bustle, all the stress and hurry of modern life, it felt great to get back to the land. I know that’s cliché, but it’s still true. Sure, it was only for 20 minutes or so, but it was really fun. And yes, I am aware that my experience was very tailored to the benefits of that lifestyle, but I came away a believer. It was so free and easy out there. Just you, the plants and the dirt ---and the dirt doesn’t judge.

Needless to say, I got carried away. In all those bean-picking years, I have really perfected my technique and in 20 minutes I had picked a quarter of a row (they were long rows) and a little over 5 lbs. for our small family. We’ll likely be having a lot of smoothies to use them all. 

Claire was excited about being there for the “berries”, but wasn’t too keen on actually helping pick them, so I picked and she put them in the box. I briefly considered requiring her help in the picking, but she is still probably too young for that. Besides, I didn’t mind. I was having a ball.

Below is a picture of Claire and our haul. Hope everyone out there is doing great!

(This is Claire.)(No that is not Hillary's butt ...'er I mean "bum" in the background)