Exhibit I: My Dad

I meant to do this for Father's Day, but here I am writing this two weeks too late when I should be doing the dishes.  My Dad is a bizarre human being.  He says he's sort of a redneck hippie.  Which is such an incongruent phrase I can't quite wrap my brain around it.  I thought I'd list his top five eccentricities, so I can save the rest for later.  We'll see how I do.
Number One:  Ha, ha, I'm sitting here blankly trying to decide which is the most unusual.  These are in no particular order then, to make it easier for me. The way he greets and responds to greetings.  Often he will just say "greetings"  I always think "earthling" in my head afterwards.  Occasionally "salutations".  He has various amusing responses to "how are you?" like "fair to middlin'"  or "sixes" or the more literal "you'd have to ask my parents" (Um. No.) or "13.8 billion years ago there was a singularity".  If you ask how he feels it's often "slightly squashy".  I can't remember even once saying, "how are you?" and him saying "fine".   He almost never responds to a question in the way you'd expect.  I guess I can respect that level of non-conformity to social norms.  I just wish that it only went as far as how he says hello.  Instead of permeating every layer of his social, emotional and cultural behavior.
Number Two: Conspiracies.  I don't really have a place to begin with this and he will probably read this and go "what conspiracies?" that's because they are all fact to him.  But he once told me that the government puts trans-fats in everything to keep us unhealthy.  Or he'll get irked if I wear a shirt with a logo on it because that's free advertising, I suppose that's not really a conspiracy.  Don't get him started on George W. Bush, or organic food or oil conspiracies.  It's always a lively conversation. 
Number Three:  And this one is totally involuntary, but still unusual.  My dad has sensitivities to anything with synthetic fragrances.  He coughs like crazy around perfume, deodorant, cleaners you name it.  Before he comes to visit I launder all my towels and sheets in fragrance free detergent.  But I always miss something.  As a result of these sensitivities, he often wears a mask in public.  When he has to remove it, he stores it conveniently on his elbow.  Fortunately, the man-made fragrance of human body odor doesn't make him cough, so if I go for days deodorant free he's the only person I won't be offending.   If you're coming for a visit, please check your lotions, soaps, perfumes and household cleaners at the door. 
Number Four:  This is less of an eccentricity, but still an unusual part of who he is.  I can't honestly talk about who my dad without mentioning that he has a service animal.  She is his constant companion.  What she does and why he needs her is a little harder to explain.  About twenty years ago he had a TIA (transient ischemic attack) on his way to work.  It's like a mini-stroke.  He never fully recovered.  Later he was involved in a car accident which caused further damage.  He hasn't been fully functional since then.  He likes to say he lost his marble.  He forgets a lot.  He wanders aimlessly around grocery stores.  He falls asleep unless otherwise occupied.  The dog is there to remind him to go home.  To wake him up.  To keep him active and alert.  Basically like a wife only hairier and less busy.  So Songka goes everywhere with him.  Once my parents brought her to my house for the weekend.  They vehemently assured me she didn't shed. 


Baloney

She is a purebred malamute.  In the New Mexican desert.  Of course she sheds.  It is my opinion that her services would be better rendered if she were...


Hairless?

Smaller?



Both?
 

Ok.  I guess we'll keep her.  It could definitely be weirder.
Number Five:  This goes along pretty well with my last one.  My dad LOVES canines.  Not just dogs.  When asked to go anywhere formal he wears a tie with a wolf howling at the moon.  Like to my wedding.  (I'd like to add here that he also wore his favorite footwear, Teva sandals with black socks, it went well with his suit. Luckily he left his booney hat at home.)  One of his favorite pastimes is tracking coyotes, so he can observe them in their natural habitat.  I'm fairly certain he spends more times with canines than humans (even if we excluded Songka from the canine category).  If he was told that he could take either my mom or the dog on a luxury vacation for two.....I'm not 100% positive he would pick my mom. 


Okay, It's not howling





SO that's just the top five.  I'm sure my siblings will throw some in there that I've forgotten that they think are weirder.  Although my dad is undoubtedly odd, he has some redeeming qualities too.  He gave me a deep and enduring love for nature.  He is someone I can call on no matter what the trouble is.  He has more patience than anyone I know.  He never swears.  Probably the best lesson is that he taught me that how you look isn't important.   It's how you think and what you do that matters.
Oh, and he taught us to love Tolkien.

"The lizard wept onto his horse." 

Camping

I would truly be remiss in my duty of chronicling my family's weirdness if I left out camping.  This was basically our entire summer vacation.  That and driving two hours to visit the only other family that could stand us for more than a day at a time.  Every weekend, while my friends were off at space camp, we would pack up the pickup and go camping.  This is because camping (with my family) is inexpensive and because if he could figure out how to do it, my dad would camp on a permanent basis.  Usually we would go to the mountains, but a fair number of times we camped in the desert.  My mom almost never went.  I assumed this was because she hated camping  but I now suspect that she enjoyed having the house to herself for the weekend.  When she did go, what I remember most is the drive up.  Mountain roads = certain death in my mom's mind.  Whenever we'd go around a corner, she brace herself, slam her foot against an imaginary brake and go, "jim, jim, jim, jim, JIM!" in a frantic crescendo. 

Here are a few necessities for camping in my family:
1.  Desert juice: my dad's own recipe for optimal outdoors hydration.  It's basically super dilute frozen oj with some mashed up bananas, if you're lucky.  I hate bananas.
2.  Shovel:  For digging the toilet.  Yeah, it was that kind of camping.  I'm a real expert at not peeing on my legs whilst squatting.  Also the shovel handle doubles as a toilet paper holder.  If Dad happened to remember to pack some. 
3.  Tent:  This was an old canvas army tent that took an engineering degree (or the patience of a giant tortoise) to erect successfully.
4.  Pocket knife:  For whittling our cooking sticks.  We all made our own.  No fancy premade marshmallow sticks for us.
5.  Kerosene lantern:  Any extra fire hazard is a fantastic idea.
Some memorable experiences include: fashioning caveman style clothes out of some curtains we found in an abandoned camper trailer.  Collecting cans on our hikes to turn in for cash later.  Skinny dipping in what was basically a giant mud puddle.  Applying my sister's sunscreen in polka dots because I was mad at her.  And Learning the hard way what poison ivy and stinging nettle look like.
A camping trip was not complete unless we caught a small animal.  Usually a snake.  We subsisted on a diet of hot dogs and marshmallows.  My dad would tell us bear stories from when he was a kid (I'm not sure if this is related, but I have sincere arcotophobia.  I have nightmares about bears, and when I'm out riding my bike in Durango I'm always worried one will come out of the woods and chase me down)

 We always had to check for ticks.  We never found any.


 



But there is a lot of good stuff I learned while camping too. 
1. Leave it as clean as you found it, or cleaner.  This was our cardinal camping rule.
2. I know by sight lots of edible plants.  Thanks dad, that has come in handy so often.  I'm going to be the girl version of Darryl when the zombie apocalypse hits.
3.  I can start a fire with batteries, flint and steel and a magnifying glass.  Another skill I have never used once. 
4.  You can get $155/ton of aluminum cans.
5.  An actual ton is A LOT of aluminum cans.
6.  The Wooly Lamb's Ear plant is supposedly a cure for poison ivy, also it is edible, so if you're starving and just got tangled up in poison ivy and you happen upon some wooly lamb's ear, it's your lucky day.
7.  Always apply sunscreen to your behind.
8.  Wild animals are NOT as afraid of me as I am of them.
9.  Always check your sleeping bag.  There's a good bet your brother put that garter snake he caught in yours.
My family still enjoys camping.  We met up a few weeks ago to camp.  It was great to watch my dad try to teach my kids the Rule of the Mountain and get them to eat lamb's ear.  My sister brought her cat. 

Why not?

Exhibit G: Our Cars

The vehicles my family owns are accessories to their weirdness.

The first car I can remember is our old red Chevy Nova.  It had plaid upholstery.  Like this:


Me in my carpet coat.

Yes, that is a sibling's behind in the photo.  They are climbing onto "the shelf".  The most coveted spot in the car for travel. Perhaps not the safest.  Luckily we appear to have travelled with a foam mattress for extra padding.

What I remember most clearly about this car was that if you lifted up the mat behind the drivers seat, the floor had rusted through, leaving a baseball sized hole.  It scared me a little, but I loved lifting the edge and watching the road zipping by inches away.

Around this time we also had a truck.  Seen in the back ground here (along with what looks like a random axle elegantly decorating our front yard).  I don't remember wearing those awesome overalls.

What I do remember is the hours spent sitting in the curve of it's enormous steering wheel and rocking back and forth.  Often when I get in a car now, I eye it's steering wheel and think "I wonder.."

I am almost tempted until I imagine explaining to the firemen why they need to use their jaws of life to extricate a thirty something year old from her steering column.   My other memory of this truck is the tons (literally) of cow manure we shoveled from the back of it onto my mother's vegetable garden over the years. 

When I lived in this house, my grandmother lived with us.  She drove a Chrysler Caprice Classic.  I remember this because of the way it was beautifully written across the maroon dashboard.  I wanted to write like that some day.  Here she is getting into it behind our pyramid.

The notable thing about this car is it was the one that sat unused and unusable in our yard for many years, earning us full redneck status.

My dad's motorcycle.  This was the best thing ever.  Sometimes when my dad got home from work he would put one of us on the front.  Place his enormous helmet, which functioned more like a paperweight than a safety feature for us, on our head and zip off around the vacant lot across the street.  I don't remember my mother ever riding, but apparently she dared to sit on it once.

The Datsun.  Ah, the Datsun. 



 How to travel in comfort and style:

1. Throw a mattress in the back of your Datsun pickup.

2.  Use old cardboard boxes for suitcases.

3.  Drive 1500 miles with your five children in back. 

Guaranteed to be a vacation they will never forget. 

Other vehicles of note:

-Pooker's first car.  I don't have a picture of this.  I wish I did, because it was unbelievable.  It was some kind of hatchback.  It had been primed, but not painted, so most of it was a matte gray.  Except one door, that had been purchased to replace the former one, it was bright red.  And someone had spray painted 10 life-sized stencils of President Lincoln's profile from the penny in random spots all over it.  This was the car he drove me to and from junior high in.  The embarrassment lives with me to this day.

-Our club wagon van.  I don't remember driving in this even one time.  It sat in our driveway and functioned as a playhouse.  I don't think it ever worked.  Despite Sneet's mechanic skills.  My mom assures me that it functioned for one trip to Yellowstone.  It also had a rusted out hole in the floor, which we covered with cardboard so no one would get hurt on the way.  The cardboard caught on fire because it was too close to the manifold.  After some brief panic, we just ended up throwing the cardboard out the window. 

 



-The Ford Crown Victoria Wagon.

This car served us well for many years.  Usually transporting more people than it was designed for.  My notable memories of it are driving with my best friend's family and my dad put a sign on the window that said "11 kids...not all mine" because so many people were trying to count.  And the time Beadle fell out the not fully fastened back door and almost got run over.   

-Nana's current vehicle.  A smart car.

 





-My parent's overwhelming devotion to their current Saturn.  Which they claim, through some tinkering, gets 40 mpg. 

But truly, what can you expect when you started married life with this?

A sweet Scout 80.

And some killer sunglasses. 

You can only go downhill from there.



Character Witness: Regarding My Mother: The World's Most Excessive Worrier

Now, please don't imagine that this will be my only post about Slugweirta.  This is simply one of the many facets of her weirdness.  My mother is a worst-case-scenario expert.  She can outfret anyone.  On the planet.  Here are a few examples of what I mean.
When I was eight, shortly after the gum incident, I began to notice that I had two weird raisin-sized bumps on my chest.  I mentioned these to my mom.  She gave me a cursory visual exam and deduced that it was likely a very rare case of bilateral juvenile breast cancer.  She made me an appointment with the pediatrician post haste.  I was understandably terrified.  He got us in as soon as possible.  On the day of the appointment, I remember sitting on the bed in the doctor's office while my mom explained the problem to the nurse.  I have to applaud her professionalism because she didn't laugh even one time.  Although she was a little at a loss for what to do.  The pediatrician doesn't typically do breast exams.  So, after having me remove my shirt, they wrapped my chest in paper towels to maintain my decency.  The doctor, who also happened to be my neighbor, determined that I was starting what appeared to be perfectly normal, if a little premature puberty.  Thanks, Mom.  First breast exam at eight years old.  My adolescence was off to a fantastic start.
Once, can it be this only happened once?  Probably not.  Multiple times when Pooker was late coming home from work, Slugweirta called the police to see if he had been in a fatal car accident.  When no accidents were reported she had them issue an APB.  Usually they don't do this when the person is eighteen and has only been missing for an hour.  BUT, she convinced them that he was disabled (he had a mild speech delay) and might never be found if they didn't look for him now.  He might never make an unplanned grocery stop again.  This assumption that anyone who's late is probably dead continues to this day.  Which is a huge problem with my perpetually late family.  If Nana doesn't call her on her way home from work, she will drive the route from her work to her house looking for car wrecks.  I would think that much anxiety could kill a person.
Beadle once asked Slugweirta what first attracted her to my dad.  Her response was she figured if anyone was likely to survive the next ice age, it was him.  Always planning ahead.  For global climactic change.

Ice Age Survivability: 87%

My mother, who was not alive during the Great Depression, is always assuming another one is around the corner.  She is very careful to have no debt.  An admirable trait.  She plants a vegetable garden big enough to feed an army.  She keeps everything.  In fact, she is constantly living as if it is already the 2nd Great Depression.   Her dream is to be entirely self sufficient.  Which is why they bought the home they did.  It has it's own well.  A strong selling point for everyone.  Right?
Slugweirta is a psychologist.  So she is constantly looking for any sign that we might be developing a mental illness.  I think that much stress might give me one.
When I told my mom I was expecting my first child she said, "oh no!"  I'd like to think this was because she had really difficult pregnancies and was worried about the next uncomfortable nine months for me.  But the truth is she was really thinking, "oh no! one more person who might spontaneously combust if I don't worry about them constantly."
I appreciate the concern.  Really I do.  My wish for Mother's Day is that she will spend the entire day worry-free.  Happy Mother's Day, Slugweirta.