It's All True!: January 2012

Friday, January 13, 2012: Mum gets up early and leaves for a family wedding in California. As for everyone else, school's out! Dad does a radio show in which he and a fellow Albertan smugly discuss their various radical political views. Spencer sits in the control room, nodding his head and taking aspirin after aspirin. They proceed to the dentist to discuss Spencer's receding gums, and to consider the mounting costs now that Mum has already used up the year's entire dental allowance. Again.

Picking up Drew from school. Matt and Claire plays Lego Star Wars on the Wii even though they weren’t supposed to play Lego Star Wars on the Wii. Spence very gradually gets his room ready for the impending Caitlin and Colton Millers. In solidarity Matt takes a very long time to wash the bedclothes that Milo the cat peed on when he got locked in his room last night. Off we go to Barry’s drive-in in Spanish Fork for some burgers and fries. Matt's friend's Dad owns the place. We don't get any deals out of the relationship, but are happy to be contributing to what we all anticipate will be an impending economic resurgence. Now volunteer Spencer is off to the library to label kids’ books about potty training and all. The rest of the gang proceeds to the SF movie theatre to see Happy Feet Two, which tells us about the dire consequences of global warming, individualism, and entrepreneurial capitalism. Feature films for families!

The Millers arrive. Mum phones and feels confused when Caitlin answers. This is the kind of thing we all enjoy. Drew gets ski treats for the kids and their outing tomorrow. Dad goes to the Orem library to tell patrons about movie stars, for heaven’s sake. Meanwhile Drew and Claire get Emilie K. for an ill-timed sleep-over. Claire and Emilie watch AFV and get some ice cream and watch Sponge Boob and play Super Smash Brothers Brawl and watch Sponge Boob again. Drew goes to SLC for a study abroad mate’s wedding reception. Her stomach behaves itself. Everyone waits to see if and how Sarah is going to come down from SLC. Spence watches a Sean Connery era James Bond while the youngsters are commanded to go to bed. Sarah eventually drags in. Remaining family members tell her how to be a better person.

Saturday, January 14, 2012: Skiers off, except that Emilie forgot her money in her jeans and Drew still had Dad’s debit card. That's what people gets for trying to barge in on our family. Caitlin produces a very successful batch of Nana’s flat waffles. Earth, air, fire, water, butter, honey. Drew and Sarah stay at home while the C’s and Spence and Dad go to Mission Impossible, which was pretty implausible/impossible, and pretty good actually. Spence does find it to be a bit more violent than it needed to be. On the other hand, it does feature a(n) Uranus joke.

The C’s go shopping for a long time; Sarah is off to visit some of her non-SLCfriends, to try to sell them some more of those bargain/fund-raising cards that her team is making her sell just so they can go to frivolous Italy in the spring.

Up on the hill Claire enjoys a bout of lightheadedness and falls over and gets sent down to the yert, or the yeti even, to recover. Later she holds a garage sale, or in other words goes way too fast and hits a stretch of ice and launches herself into temporary orbit. For Matt’s part he has lots of good fast jumping runs and participates in a four man ball of wool when they all get twisted up while trying to get off the lift. The Oilers lose again/as usual.

Dad has a nice nap in that Provo parking lot, and the whole ski bus enjoys the prospect. Matt still claims him. Back at home Spencer starts his Downton Abbey marathon. The skiers go through James Bond once again, while from the next room we observe that the music does the exact same underwater thing for thirty five maddening minutes. C & C join in and everyone discovers, once again, that Colton can’t stay awake to save his life. Sarah and pals watch Return of the King. Hasn't anyone ever heard of Chariots of Fire? Dad attempts to stay up, to be a beacon of encouragement and morality for all of his young charges. Unfortunately he just ends up falling asleep, while his brazen young charges fail to turn the heat down for the night

Sunday, January 15, 2012: Dad to 1^st ward, where his high council companion goes way over time, forcing him to cut his Japanese golfer joke. The lads go to the old folks home, where Matt gives a nice talk about prayer, and Spence drinks cup after cup of coffee in the kitchen. All to church, minus the absent, gallivanting Mum. Ironically, this same Mum gets sustained as the new ward Relief Society president. Bishop John announces everything, and good old Caitlin stands up, in proxy, for her mother. There am laughs, and confusion, in equal measure. Helen Miner, using her Katharine Hepburn voice: “Am I mistaken, or did our Bishop just call your daughter as the new Relief Society president?!” Kyle Lifferth is back, and gives a lovely talk, which demonstrates again how missions can help young fellas to learn and grow and deepen, and talk Croatian, no matter how tacky it is for their mother’s to make them do it.

Spence gives a good lesson about the Word of Wisdom in prsthod. Don't drink pop. C. was going to make us dinner, but the Lifferths beat her to it, with their usual ridiculous missionary homecoming spread of various meats and tons o’ taters. Caitlin was also going to get us groceries, but maybe the Lifferths did some other thing to prevent her from doing that. As for the actual meal it is sad to report that when Dad gets around to the dessert table, Drew and Claire have already polished everything off.

Nice evening—did we mention that everyone was there, except Mum? We look at some Duncan ancestral photos, and then Claire puts on that home movie feature, and Drew checks out the TV premiere of the Napoleon Dynamite series (“how much will it cost to perform at my baptism?”), while Spencer disappears Downton-ward. Mum calls with reports of general depravity.

Monday, January 16: Matt and Caitlin, Caitlin and Matt, make us a pancake and bacon breakfast, with big assists from Colton and that new grill, which Sarah subsequently stole. Actually, Colton made the whole thing.

Monopoly! Matt victorious, and happy about it. It was all due to that infernal hotel that he put on New York Avenue. This is better than the enormous depths of sorrow into which he plunged when he lost last time. Off go the Millers, after having demonstrated how close they are, and how often and well we’ll be able to get together. Sarah leaves again, to try to sell some more cards, and because she despises us. Significantly, from there she goes to visit that Woods family in Mapleton (with all of their crazily spelled names), which she seems to prefer to her own. On the other hand, later on, they drove her back to the U. so that we didn't have to.

Drew stays home to read Plato and Suzanne Collins, while the remaining rest of us go spend money at Barnes and Noble. Having done our part, again, to help the economy recover, we return home to prepare yet another home-made meal, or at least to buy ourselves a pizza. Matt goes to karate, though his fees and grades forget to go with him. We eat, and in honour of Mum's absence, we don't even bother to make a salad or anything. Off goes Sarah. We hardly knew ye. We have a rummy-go-round, in which we discover that you really can have a stalemate when you're playing with face cards.

Next comes a chapter of Farmer Boy, which continues to feature Almanzo Wilder's dad working his son's guts out. Speaking of which, Mum returns. We will soon see if that pride of lice that was all the news at the wedding returned with her. Drew is kind enough to make a film for us about Mum's flowers and Sarah's photographs and paintings and Robert Schumann. She also gets perturbed at the kids ‘cause Spencer won’t stop talking about that dangin’ PBS show, and Matt won’t stop fidgeting, and Claire is ten years old. We take her home, for her sake. We think of everyone else, in their various same places. Ahh.